Georgia’s ethics commission has fired another executive secretary. The commission voted 4-0 to dismiss Holly LaBerge after a judge ruled last week she had failed to produce documents in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by the previous director of the ethics commission.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville fined LaBerge $10,000. He said she didn’t turn over a memo in which she alleged she was pressured to resolve an ethics case involving Gov. Nathan Deal.

Speaking on a conference call, the commission’s chair, Hillary Stringfellow, cited the ruling in her motion to terminate LaBerge.

“The judge’s ruling last week regarding her conduct, which Judge Glanville concluded was dishonest and nontransparent, fundamentally conflicts with the mission and purpose of this commission and therefore with her own duties and responsibilities as secretary,” she said to commissioners during the meeting.

In April, the previous executive secretary, Stacey Kalberman, won her lawsuit alleging she had been forced out of her job. The case has had a second life because after the verdict, it emerged her lawyers weren’t given LaBerge’s memo. Some argue the absence of the memo allowed Gov. Deal to avoid testifying.

Critics of the agency say the leadership change is only the tip of the iceberg. William Perry heads Common Cause Georgia, a watchdog group.

“She was a central figure in this drama and needed to exit the stage a long time ago and now that she has, I will say it’s a positive step but a very small step toward the real reform the entire agency needs,” he said in an interview.

The decision announced via conference call was made after an executive session. None of the commissioners were present in the office, and the only people attending the meeting in person were staff members, reporters, and a representative of the state Department of Audits, which is conducting a performance audit of the agency.

Perry with Common Cause thinks the ethics scandal may bring much needed pressure on lawmakers to act.

“It seems like the only time we get movement in the ethics world is when they are fearful of something,” Perry said of state lawmakers. “I think their reputations are on the line for being part of producing this mess that we’ve got now. Hopefully they will finally to step up and clean this thing up.”

Otherwise, he said it won’t matter who gets appointed next as executive secretary. His organization has proposed moving the agency into the judicial branch, changing its funding source, and stripping lawmakers of their power to appoint commission members.

It’s been a tough year for the ethics commission, also known as the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Kalberman won more than $1 million in a jury verdict after suing for being pushed out of her job. She has said she was fired because she was investigating potential wrong-doing in Deal’s election campaign.

Kalberman has said the aborted investigation had uncovered “troubling irregularities” with Deal’s campaign financial disclosures.

In an interview with GPB-TV’s On The Story in June, she said the Governor and the Speaker of the House appoint members of the state ethics commission, and that’s like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.

“The people who choose the people on the ethics commission are those same people that are regulated,” she said.

Three other complaints were quickly settled following her verdict. According to the settlements released by Attorney General Olens, the state is paying $1 million to the commission's former deputy, Sherry Streicker, $410,000 to former IT specialist John Hair and former staff attorney Elisabeth Murray-Obertein will receive $477,500.

A spokeswoman for Deal said the Governor had nothing to do with the ethics cases.

"While the Governor's Office has no say over personnel matters at the campaign finance commission, Gov. Deal has repeatedly said the current system is broken and needs major overhaul," she said in a statement. "For his second term, he has proposed a comprehensive reform plan that will remove any appearance of conflict of interest by ensuring no elected official's case is reviewed by appointees from his or her branch of government.

Deal’s opponent in the gubernatorial race, Democrat Jason Carter, has made the scandal a centerpiece of his campaign.

In a statement Monday, his campaign said LaBerge “was recommended for the position by the governor’s office. She took the job while the governor was under a major ethics investigation, which she subsequently quashed. The governor later praised her work in a personal letter of recommendation. Had LaBerge or the Attorney General’s office revealed the hidden documents during a whistleblower suit earlier this year, Gov. Deal may have been compelled to testify about his role in the cover-up of a major ethics investigation into his campaign.”

The ethics commission will have to replace LaBerge but it provided no details on when it will do so. A call to Stringfellow wasn’t returned.