Good Thursday morning, Atlanta!

Today's weather: Sunny. Highs in the mid-50s.

Situational awareness: Gov. Brian Kemp will deliver the 2025 State of the State address today at 11am at the Capitol.

• Watch live. Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II (D-Augusta) will deliver the Democratic Party's response at 7pm on GPB's "Lawmakers."

Today's newsletter is 891 words — a 3-minute read.

The voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams and its affiliated action fund were fined $300,000 yesterday for violating Georgia campaign finance laws in 2018 and 2019.

Why it matters: The nonprofits admitted to violating Georgia campaign finance laws in spending more than $3 million to support Abrams and the Democratic ticket in the 2018 election, and spending more than $600,000 on a local ballot initiative election in 2019.

• It's "the largest fine ever imposed" by Georgia's Ethics Commission, the panel executive director David Emaldi said.
• He added that "it also appears to be the largest ethics fine we've seen by any state ethics commission in the country, related to an election and campaign finance issue."

Zoom in: Abrams' New Georgia Project once was a major organizing force in Georgia that claimed large credit for registering voters. Her group's efforts helped Joe Biden win Georgia, and the presidency.

• But accusations of financial mismanagement and turnover have crippled the New Georgia Project.
• Abrams stepped away from the group in 2017, the year before her unsuccessful gubernatorial run against Brian Kemp that catapulted her to national prominence.

A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia), who led the organization during the time in question, denied knowledge of the violations in a statement to the AP.

Catch up quick: Georgia's Ethics Commission first issued a complaint against the group in September 2019, based on its spending in hotly contested statewide races and a campaign to expand MARTA to Gwinnett County.

• In both elections the group spent money trying to persuade voters through its nonprofit, but state officials deemed that under state law its election work should have been done by an independent committee.

Such a committee, similar to a super PAC in a federal election, would have had to regularly file financial disclosure reports unlike a nonprofit, which can keep most of its spending and its donors secret.

• The New Georgia Project fought to keep its bank records private until 2022, when a judge ruled they had to be disclosed.

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There's no snow but plenty to do. Here's what's on tap this three-day weekend: