WHEN Joe Sixpack faces allegations of impropriety, he has two options: accept the charges or rebut them. But when a congressman faces an investigation into similar allegations by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), he has a third choice: resign. The OCE can only probe or punish sitting members of Congress.

In early 2010 the OCE found “substantial reason to believe” that Nathan Deal, then a congressman from northern Georgia, had used his position to enrich himself. (It alleged that he had intervened to protect a state programme that benefited his car-salvage company.) Shortly before the OCE was due to release its report, Mr Deal resigned, saying he wanted to focus on running for governor, and calling the report a “political witch hunt fuelled by Democrats”. (He stayed in Congress long enough to vote against Obamacare.) The OCE released its report anyway.

Unmoved, Georgia’s voters elected Mr Deal governor, a position he has held since January 2011. Now he is pooh-poohing another ethics scandal. In July 2012 the Georgia state ethics commission settled five complaints against Mr Deal alleging misuse or improper reporting of campaign funds during his 2010 run for governor. The commission dismissed two big complaints and assessed administrative fees totalling $3,350 on more than 50 minor ones.

In September the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), the area’s biggest daily newspaper, reported that Holly LaBerge, executive secretary of the Georgia ethics commission, ordered pertinent documents removed during its investigation of Mr Deal. The ethics commission’s staff lawyer has also accused Ms LaBerge of boasting that Mr Deal “owes” her, because she “made this [ie, the ethics complaint] go away”, and that the light punishment given to Mr Deal was “completely influenced by…private meetings and discussions” between Ms LaBerge and members of Mr Deal’s staff. The state ethics commission initially voted to ask Georgia’s attorney-general to appoint an independent investigator to look into the allegations, but on October 22nd asked the state audits department to conduct an internal probe.

Mr Deal told reporters that he is “regretful of the decline I have seen in the reporting of the AJC”, and called the allegations “totally unsubstantiated and primarily false”. Ms Laberge, through her lawyer, also denies all the allegations levelled at her. Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Mr Deal, blames “media frustration” for the story, which, he says, amounts to nothing more than “he-said, she-said within the ethics commission”. If any files were removed, Mr Deal wants them restored, because “we’re telling the truth and we have nothing to hide.”

Meetings between Mr Deal’s staff and members of the ethics commission were, Mr Robinson says, routine—the sort of meetings that often occur between the governor’s office and state agencies. In any event, Mr Deal seems to have found a silver lining to the allegations: fundraising. The day after the AJC story his campaign sent an e-mail blaming “the liberal news media” for “baseless, factually flawed” articles and asking supporters for “$100, $50 or even $25 [to] help me push back against liberal noise and attacks from the mainstream media.”

But not all criticism of Mr Deal has come from liberals. He is up for re-election next year, and so far has attracted two Republican primary challengers: David Pennington, the mayor of Dalton, a small carpetmaking town; and John Barge, the superintendent of Georgia’s public schools. Mr Pennington says that Mr Deal needs to “tell us what happened”, adding that the perception of corruption among state officials hurts Georgia’s economy. Mr Barge faults Mr Deal for “underfunding public schools”, and calls for “leaders who will govern and not play politics”.

Things have been quieter on the left. So far just one Democrat has declared: Connie Stokes, a former state senator and county commissioner from the Atlanta suburbs. But a poll released on October 9th showed Jason Carter, a state senator and grandson of a former American president, trailing Mr Deal by just four points (40% to 44%)—within the margin of error. And nearly half of those polled say that the ethics commission’s call for an independent investigation provides a “convincing” reason to vote against Mr Deal.

Asked about his gubernatorial ambitions, Mr Carter said: “I’m not going to comment but I’m thinking about it.” Like many Democrats, he believes that both Mr Deal specifically and “the Republican brand” more generally are vulnerable in the state, though Democrats currently hold no statewide office. Michelle Nunn, a Democrat running for Georgia’s open Senate seat, has amassed a hefty war-chest in a short period of time, and like Mr Carter has a famous Democratic father (Sam Nunn, a former United States senator).

Demography helps Democrats: the state is growing younger and less white. In addition, Mr Carter believes that “in rural Georgia Republican support is fraying. People are no longer getting answers to their questions” because Republican fixate on ideological purity at the expense of pragmatism.

He may be right, but challenging a generally effective incumbent Republican governor in a state that remains bright red will be hard. Should he decline to fight this time, however, there will be other chances. Mr Carter is only 38.