Brunessa Drayton, a former Cobb Library System supervisor and chief assistant to Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, announced Tuesday she is running for Cobb Superior Court Clerk in 2024.
Drayton, a Democrat who declared her intent to run in November, said she is running “because the Clerk’s office is in need of leadership that’s focused on the details. I’m ready to bring leadership, integrity, and transparency to the Clerk’s office.”
She the second Democratic hopeful challenging incumbent clerk Connie Taylor, who has come under fire for personally pocketing more than $400,000 in passport fees—which are legal—but far beyond her salary of $170,000.
More recently, Taylor has been the subject of complaints from lawyers, judges and prosecutors, as reported by the MDJ, for a backlog of filing online court records going back several months.
The newspaper reported last week that Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert Leonard even posted a message on his Facebook page telling attorneys with cases before him that “if you have something important that needs attention, or even a responsive pleading with a hearing coming up, please send my office a courtesy copy.”
Taylor was elected in 2020, defeating Republican incumbent Rebecca Keaton.
In a release announcing her campaign, Drayton didn’t mention Taylor by name or specify those issues, but said that “I know the importance of a government that works for people and makes the most of our community’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Under my leadership, the Clerk’s office will solve problems instead of creating them.”
In her time in Cupid’s office, Drayton helped provide oversight during the county’s COVID-19 response and to develop programs such as the county’s first Youth Commission and Cobb African American Public Policy Forum.
She also was the Northwest Georgia Outreach Coordinator for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Drayton and her husband have four sons and live in Powder Springs. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Kentucky University and a master’s degree in public administration from Kennesaw State University and has been a member of the Cobb Library Board of Trustees.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The proposed 11th District would include all of East Cobb and Marietta as well as the Town Center area and I-75 corridor north of Smyrna.
The Georgia legislature completed a special session Thursday by adopting Congressional maps that would place all of East Cobb in the 11th U.S. House District.
But Cobb Democratic commissioner Jerica Richardson, who has announced for the 6th Congressional District that was substantially redrawn, said she doesn’t think the maps will “hold up.”
They don’t pass “the smell test,” she said in an interview Thursday on the Politically Georgia podcast, before the maps were passed.
The Republican-majority legislature was called into a special session following a federal judge’s order to redraw legislative and Congressional lines for violations of the U.S. Voting Rights Act.
Specifically, lawmakers were ordered to create a new majority-black Congressional district in metro Atlanta. That appears to be the new 6th District, which includes most of South Cobb and covers an area represented by longtime Democratic incumbent David Scott.
In a posting on her campaign Facebook page, Richardson said Thursday night that “the maps that Republicans drew are in clear violation of a federal court order to add a new majority-minority district. We fully expect a legal challenge to this map, and there’s a high likelihood that it can succeed.”
Richardson said she hasn’t decided which district she may decide to run in—candidates do not have to live in their Congressional districts—but ruled out competing against any Democratic incumbent.
“We will evaluate where the need is and decide whether my message will resonate with the communities in that district,” she said in the Politically Georgia interview.
While she was asked if she may take on current 6th District Republican incumbent Rich McCormick in the new 7th District, Richardson didn’t mention the prospect of running in the new 11th District.
That seat is held by Republican Barry Loudermilk, and the new lines would include some of Cherokee County, as well as all of Bartow, Pickens and Gordon counties.
She continued in her social media message that “while the battles play out in court over the next few weeks, I remain committed to running a grassroots campaign on the same issues that have driven me from the start: connecting all communities to power and ensuring they have a voice in government, protecting our fundamental rights, expanding access to healthcare, improving infrastructure and transit, and enhancing economic empowerment.”
Richardson, who was drawn out of her Cobb Commission District 2 home in East Cobb by the legislature last year, has been holding meetings and events in the current 6th—which stretches from East Cobb up through North Fulton, Forsyth and Dawson counties—since she announced her Congressional ambitions this summer.
Richardson and her two Democratic colleagues on the commission invoked home rule over reapportionment, which critics say violates the state constitution.
A Cobb Superior Court judge is expected to rule this month on that legal dispute.
“At every roadblock, there has been an incredible outpouring of community support,” she said on the podcast. “I don’t expect this to be any different.
“At the end of the day, people just want people to represent them. If we can keep the focus, we’ll all be okay.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
New Georgia State Senate maps (left) would put some of East Cobb in District 33, while the State House boundaries (right) didn’t change much.
East Cobb voters who got a substantial new look on their ballots for Georgia State Senate races in 2022 elections will get another one in 2024.
The Georgia General Assembly on Tuesday adopted legislative maps that likely ensure Republican control and would substantially alter East Cobb’s representation in the upper chamber.
After passing the Senate on Friday, the Senate maps were approved Tuesday by the House. Likewise, the Senate passed State House maps that left the East Cobb area relatively unchanged.
The legislature is in a special session to redraw state and Congressional boundaries after a federal judge declared the 2021 maps violate the U.S. Voting Rights Act.
The Georgia legislature has had Republican majorities since 2005. Currently the GOP has a 102-78 advantage in the House, and a 33-23 majority in the Senate.
Lawmakers were ordered to create a majority-black Congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta be created, as well as several majority-black legislative districts in the Atlanta and Macon areas.
The East Cobb area had been largely represented in the Senate with one seat, District 32. But after the 2021 Census, legislators redrew the East Cobb area to include District 32, District 56 and District 6.
For the 2023 session, those incumbents were Republicans Kay Kirkpatrick and John Albers and Democrat Jason Esteves, respectively.
The new lines would remove District 6 and place some of East Cobb District 33, which stretches from Powder Springs and through the city of Marietta
That’s represented by Democrat Michael “Doc” Rhett, who represented a smaller part of the East Cobb area until reapportionment.
The maps that were approved were proposed by Republican leaders, who claimed the new boundaries met the judge’s order.
Democrats disagreed, and some complained that the new maps unfairly placed incumbent Democrats in the same district.
One of those situations is in the Smyrna area, where Cobb legislative delegation chairwoman Teri Anulewicz and Doug Stoner were redrawn into District 35.
After the maps are signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, they will be submitted to the federal court for final review.
Legislators also must finish Congressional redistricting by Friday. Maps proposed by GOP leaders would also change East Cobb representation, putting most of the area in District 11 and taking out District 6.
Democrats are threatening legal action at what they say is gerrymandering, including 6th District candidate and current Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson.
“These maps are an affront to the idea of fair representation and fly in the face of the judge’s order to the state,” she said.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Two years after carving up East Cobb into two Congressional districts, the Georgia legislature could be dramatically tearing up those lines again.
During a special legislative session that got underway earlier this week, Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairwoman Shelly Echols submitted a map that would put most of East Cobb in the 11th Congressional district.
Lawmakers were called to a special session after a decision by a federal judge in Atlanta to throw out the maps the legislature adopted in 2021, saying they diluted minority voting strength under the federal Voting Rights Act.
The legislature has until Dec. 8 to finish reapportionment work under the court order.
The 11th District been represented since 2016 by Cassville Republican Barry Loudermilk, and currently includes some of East Cobb.
The proposed 11th district would include some of Cherokee County and all of Bartow, Pickens and Gordon counties.
The map, proposed on Friday, would take the 6th District out of East Cobb completely. Some of the area is currently in the 6th and is represented by first-term Republican Rich McCormick.
Instead, the 7th District would include much of what is now in the 6th—North Fulton, Forsyth and Dawson c0unties, plus some of Hall and Lumpkin counties.
The proposed 11th District would include all of East Cobb and Marietta as well as the Town Center area and I-75 corridor north of Smyrna.
That would likely make the 11th an even stronger Republican district than the 6th. Cobb Democratic commissioner Jerica Richardson has announced her candidacy in the 6th, and she has appeared at events in more conservative reaches of the district.
Richardson was drawn out of her East Cobb home when the legislature reapportioned seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in 2021. Richardson and her two Democratic colleagues voted to invoke home rule and honor maps drawn by the Cobb delegation, an action that’s currently before a Cobb Superior Court judge.
In a social media message Friday, Richardson issued a statement saying that “these maps are an affront to the idea of fair representation and fly in the face of the judge’s order to the state.”
She referenced a similar action in Alabama, where Republican lawmakers under a court order created a second black-majority district in that state.
“My hope is they will see the error of their ways and fix these maps again before the judge’s Dec. 8 deadline,” Richardson said of the Georgia GOP lawmakers.
“If they do not, then I would support further legal challenges until the core message of the judge’s order is fulfilled.”
Nine of Georgia’s 14 Congressional districts are represented by Republicans, and eight seats are majority-white.
The judge ordered that a majority-black Congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta be created. But the map proposed Friday would not do that.
Instead, it would add a minority-white district, keep the number of majority-black districts at four and leave one district that doesn’t have a racial majority.
That’s the current 7th District represented by Democrat Lucy McBath, who left the 6th District after 2021 reapportionment. It would have a strong Republican majority under the proposed map, and would take out all of Gwinnett County that she now represents.
The legislature also was ordered to create several majority-black legislative districts in the Atlanta and Macon areas.
The Georgia General Assembly has had Republican majorities since 2005. Currently the GOP has a 102-78 advantage in the House, and a 33-23 majority in the Senate.
Maps enacted in 2021 split East Cobb into the 6th and 11th districts.
The House on Friday voted out a House map along partisan lines proposed by Republican leaders in that chamber, and it will be sent to the Senate.
GOP State Reps. Sharon Cooper, John Carson and Don Parsons, who have East Cobb constituencies, voted in favor.
Voting against was State Rep. Solomon Adesanya, a first-term Democrat who represents District 43 in East Cobb.
Three redrawn districts in the House would pit Democratic incumbents against one another, including current Cobb delegation Chairwoman Teri Anulewicz and Doug Stoner.
Adesanya said in a social media message that “rather than doing the right thing, this time, they targeted our White Democrats, coupling members in three different House seats, which, essentially under their map, three Democrats will have to go, and three Democrats will remain. The Republicans in the Georgia House of Representatives must know their time as a majority is nearing the end. They are desperate to cling on to power.”
Senate Republicans on Friday also passed a map that would add two majority-black districts, and that will go on to the House.
Committee meetings are scheduled for Monday for the Congressional maps.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Proposed maps by Senate Republicans, left, and the Democratic caucus, at right, would carve up East Cobb representation in sharply different ways.
The Georgia General Assembly will begin a special session on Wednesday to redraw Congressional and legislative districts.
An initial hearing of the House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee takes place at 1 p.m. at the Georgia Capitol.
The session was prompted following a decision by a federal judge in Atlanta to throw out the maps the legislature adopted in 2022, saying they diluted minority voting strength.
The Georgia legislature has had Republican majorities since 2005. Currently the GOP has a 102-78 advantage in the House, and a 33-23 majority in the Senate.
Party control isn’t expected to change, but the judge ordered that a majority-black Congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta be created, as well as several majority-black legislative districts in the Atlanta and Macon areas.
None of them are in the East Cobb area, but map proposals released earlier this week show some dramatically different lines.
A map proposed by Senate Republicans would remove District 6, currently represented by Democrat Jason Esteves of Atlanta, out of East Cobb completely.
Instead, District 33, represented by West Cobb Democrat Doc Rhett, would sweep across the county, taking in a sizable portion of East Cobb.
A map proposed by the Senate Democratic Caucus would expand District 6 further into East Cobb.
Both maps would include much of the East Cobb area currently represented by Republicans Kay Kirkpatrick (District 32) and John Albers (District 56).
The House Republican leadership has proposed a House map (at right) that would make some minor changes to East Cobb representation in that body, retaining most of the current areas of Districts 37, 43, 44, 45 and 46. House Democrats have not yet filed a map.
The legislature also will have to redraw all 14 of Georgia’s Congressional districts, which could affect East Cobb representation. Nine of those seats are held by Republicans.
In 2022, the General Assembly drew Congressional maps that included portions of District 6 and District 11 in East Cobb.
Those are currently represented by Republicans Rich McCormick and Barry Loudermilk, respectively.
District 6 had included most of East Cobb and for three terms was represented by Democrat Lucy McBath. But she moved to the Democratic-leaning 7th District in Gwinnett after the 6th was redrawn to include North Fulton and GOP strongholds in Forsyth and Dawson counties.
No proposed maps have been submitted as of yet.
Democratic Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson, who was drawn out of her District 2 by the legislature that is the subject of a current legal dispute, is running for 6th District Congress and has held several fundraising and other events.
The legislature, which has until Dec. 8 to redraw the maps, also is conducting other limited business during the special session.
You can track the session and watch live feeds by clicking here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
McCormick speaking from the House floor Tuesday on a resolution to censure Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib over the Israel-Hamas conflict.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, a Republican whose 6th District includes East Cobb, is temporarily closing his district office in Cumming due to what he said are “serious threats of violence against my staff.”
He didn’t specify what they were in a social media posting Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter), but he added that the “threats have been reported to Capitol Police and will be investigated fully.”
McCormick said his district staff will be working remotely and constituents can contact them via phone and e-mail.
McCormick is in his first term representing the 6th, which was redrawn to include East Cobb, some of North Fulton, as well as Forsyth and Dawson counties and a portion of Gwinnett, where he lives.
He is in Washington this week as the House voted to censure Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for comments critical of Israel.
He opposed a resolution by fellow Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene accusing Tlaib of “leading an insurrection at the United States Capitol.”
McCormick filed his own resolution Monday and on Tuesday, he posted on X saying that “that this is not a First Amendment issue. Rashida Tlaib has the right to spew antisemitic vitriol and even call for the destruction of the Jewish State. But the House of Representatives also has a right to make it clear that her hate speech does not reflect the opinion of the chamber, and that is what my resolution is about.”
In remarks from the House floor Tuesday, McCormick—a former emergency room physician—also said that while his “heart goes out to the Palestinian people,” especially those injured and killed in a hospital bombing—Tlaib’s public statements that it was from an Israel attack were incorrect.
The House voted 234-188 to censure Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, the 26th time that has happened to a member of Congress.
“I was proud to lead a bipartisan coalition of our members to hold Rashida Tlaib accountable for her dishonest and antisemitic behavior,” McCormick posted on X late Tuesday night. “Thank you to all the other members who helped me refine the language of the bill, who cosponsored and spoke on the floor in support, and the 22 Democrats that had the courage to join us in voting for final passage. This is the right way to get things done.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A member of Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson’s “community cabinet” is considering making a run to succeed her in 2024.
Kevin Redmon, an East Cobb resident, filed a declaration of intent form with the Cobb Elections Office on Oct. 23.
According to the filings, Redmon, an IT sales and account manager, would be running as a Democrat in District 2.
A declaration is not a formal filing for a campaign, but Redmon formed a campaign committee in August.
On Richardson’s cabinet, he serves as an East Cobb community liaison, and is a regular presence at Cobb Board of Commission meetings during public comment periods.
“I love being engaged and I was wanting to do more,” Redmon told East Cobb News.
A resident of East Cobb since 2005, Redmon said he initially got involved in community issues with the anti-cityhood group East Cobb Alliance, whose leader, Mindy Seger, introduced him to Richardson.
Thus far Redmon, who is married with a daughter, is the only individual who has expressed at least semi-formal interest in running in District 2.
Richardson, a first-term Democrat, has filed to run for the 6th Congressional District after legislative reapportionment in 2022 drew her out of her commission district.
Redmon said his priorities include “just really communicating with residents in a clear way about what’s happening.
“Complex issues are being presented to the public,” and he said it’s not always clearly understood what the potential impact of a pr0posed service or spending issue may be.
Some of those issues include stormwater management, which has become a growing concern in East Cobb since severe flooding in Sept. 2021.
The county is preparing a possible funding solution that would impose an impact fee, based on amount of impervious surface on a property, that Redmon said would likely affect larger commercial customers more than average homeowners.
“It’s a simple message, but there’s been a lot of pushback,” Redmon said.
Redmon said that it’s important to place “a focus on the future.”
Cobb’s population is growing older, and he said “the future is coming at us pretty quickly.
“We need to make decisions that respect people who have been here many years but we also have to attract people who are moving in and raising families.
The District 2 boundaries would include most of Smyrna and Marietta and areas north along the Interstate 75 corridor.
The map drawn by the legislature in 2022 placed most of East Cobb in District 3, represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell.
That electoral map is currently being contested in Cobb Superior Court after the commission’s Democratic majority voted to invoke home rule. Another hearing is scheduled for Nov. 20.
Richardson and her party colleagues are seeking to employ maps that would place the East Cobb area in Districts 2 and 3, similar to what they had been before reapportionment.
As that dispute began, Richardson launched a civic and political education non-profit, For Which It Stance, at which Redmon also serves as a community captain.
He also participated in a recent cybersecurity awareness event held by Richardson and other Cobb County officials.
The District 2 seat is one of three that will be on the 2024 ballot, and all of them are currently held by Democrats. Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid has announced she’s seeking re-election. District 4 incumbent Monique Sheffield of South Cobb will be completing her first term.
Redmon said until there’s a court ruling on what the District 2 boudaries may be, he’s going to continue “getting out to events and talking to people.
“There is a real desire for a hyperlocal focus on the job. That’s what I’m finding people are caring about.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Congressional maps passed in 2021 substantially redrew the 6th District that once included most of East Cobb.
Georgia lawmakers will be called to a special session to redraw the state’s Congressional and legislative maps after a federal judge ruled Thursday that they violate civil rights law.
U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones in Atlanta said the maps drawn by the Georgia legislature in 2021 substantially diluted minority voting strength, especially in parts of metro Atlanta, under the U.S. Voting Rights Act.
Gov. Brian Kemp has signed an order calling for a Nov. 29 special session after Jones ordered new maps be completed by Dec. 8.
Among the particulars in Jones lengthy ruling (you can read it here) is the creation of a majority-black Congressional district in the western part of metro Atlanta, and several majority-black legislative districts in the Atlanta and Macon areas.
The plaintiffs included a number of civil rights organizations, the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgia and individuals alleging their voting rights have been diminished due to the 2021 reapportionment.
They cited black population growth in Georgia over the last two decades that has not been reflected in political representation in the U.S. House and legislature.
Nine of Georgias’s 14 Congressional seats are held by Republicans, including three who represent portions of Cobb County.
Georgia’s black population has grown by 484,048 people since 2010, while the white population fell by 51,764.
“In the last decade, all of Georgia’s population growth was attributable to the minority population, however, the number of majority-Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same,” Jones wrote in his ruling.
“Based on the 2020 Census, the combined Black population in Cobb, Fulton, Douglas, and Fayette Counties is 807,076 persons, more than necessary to constitute an entirely AP Black congressional district—or a majority in two congressional districts.”
That could affect how Congressional lines are drawn in the East Cobb area. Until 2021, East Cobb was mostly contained in the 6th Congressional District.
That was represented from 2019-2022 by black Democrat Lucy McBath after many years of GOP representation, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
But the redrawn map included a lesser portion of the 6th District in East Cobb and pulled in some of the 11th District, aimed at ensuring Republican seats.
The 6th now includes some of north Fulton, Forsyth and Dawson counties, which are conservative.
McBath moved to the 7th Congressional District, based in Gwinnett County, after that. Rich McCormick, a conservative Republican, won the 6th and veteran GOP House member Barry Loudermilk was re-elected in the 11th.
Jake Orvis, a McBath spokesman, issued a statement Thursday saying that she “applauds the court for upholding the principles of fair and equal representation. While the outcome of the process remains unclear, one thing is certain: Rep. McBath will not be letting Republicans in the state legislature determine when her work serving Georgians is done.”
Jerica Richardson, a Cobb Commissioner from District 2 in East Cobb, has announced she is running for the 6th District seat, and she has been campaigning in Dawson and Forsyth.
After being drawn out of her commission seat that expires at the end of 2024—and for which a home rule dispute is still pending in Cobb Superior Court—she said in a statement Thursday that while she agrees with the ruling, it doesn’t change her plans to seek federal office.
“This race for me was never about this court decision,” Richardson said. “From day one, I’ve made it clear I was committed to representing the 6th district and bringing back compassionate leadership to our community.”
She said regardless of how the new lines are drawn, “I’m here to represent the people, to fight for their issues, needs, and concerns. I am grateful to today’s decision, and am more committed than ever to winning this race.”
One of the plaintiffs in the voting rights lawsuit is Coakley Pendergrass, an associate pastor at Turner Chapel AME in Marietta and a community and faith leader who lives in the redrawn 11th District.
Jones said in his ruling that Pendergrass and his related plaintiffs “have shown that Georgia’s Black population in west-metro Atlanta is geographically compact to comprise a majority of the voting age population in an additional congressional district.”
The 2021 maps included a portion of South Cobb in the 14th District, represented by Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Jones’ ruling is the second by a federal judge ordering new maps in Southern states under the Voting Rights Act. The Alabama legislature was ordered earlier this year to create a new map with an additional black-majority seat in the southern part of the state.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb Board of Education electoral maps before 2022 reapportionment (left) and after (right).
Attorneys for plaintiffs seeking new electoral maps for the Cobb County Board of Education have filed a motion seeking a preliminary injunction.
The motion, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, seeks to prevent the Cobb Board of Elections from setting up 2024 elections with maps passed by the Georgia legislature in 2022 and asks for a ruling by December.
Four of the seven posts on the Cobb school board will be on the 2024 ballot, including Post 5 in East Cobb.
Attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations claim those maps violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and want them thrown out and redrawn before 2024 primaries in May.
The plaintiffs have claimed in their lawsuit, filed last year, that the three school board posts in South Cobb presently held by Democrats have been racially gerrymandered to dilute black and Hispanic voting strength.
They include Post 6, which previously included the Walton and Wheeler clusters and which are now in Post 5.
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the board, and three GOP-held seats will be up for re-election next year.
In their motion (you can read it here), the plaintiffs allege that the maps passed by the legislature placed a majority of black and Hispanic voters in the three southern posts and “bleaches the population of the northern districts,” in which the white populations of three of them were increased.
The motion says that the white population shift was most crucial in Post 7 in West Cobb, where incumbent Republican member Brad Wheeler narrowly won re-election in 2020 over a black Democrat. (see chart below).
The white population in Post 7 at the time was 47.55 percent. The maps passed last year increased the white population to 58.17 percent. Wheeler’s seat is among those set to expire in 2024.
The two posts in East Cobb have the highest percentage of white populations. While Post 5 didn’t change much (going from 66.97 percent to 67.24 percent), the Post 4 difference also was noticeable, rising from 57.24 percent white to 65.56.
David Chastain, one of the four GOP members of the school board, was re-elected to a third term in Post 4 last year.
The plaintiffs’ motion for an injunction comes as the Cobb elections board agreed to begin settlement talks. Ben Mathis, the lead attorney for the Cobb County School District, which had been released from the case, issued a charged statement last week accusing the elections board of “a total surrender” to what he called “leftist political activists” who wanted to usurp the power of the legislature to redraw the Cobb school board maps.
While Democrats control the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the county’s legislative delegation, Republicans currently control only the Cobb school board.
“After they discovered they could not change the direction of education in our county at the ballot box, they manufactured this unlawful court case,” Mathis said, referencing the plaintiffs.
Last week, the district’s attorneys filed a motion in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction to file an amicus brief and introduce rebuttal experts it says are necessary to respond to plaintiffs’ experts on racial discrimination in electoral maps who otherwise would have no opposition in court.
East Cobb News has left a message with the Cobb school district seeking comment on the motion for a preliminary injunction by the plaintiffs.
The school board majority hired Taylor English Decisions, a lobbying component of Cumberland-area law firm, Taylor English Duma LLP, to redraw the maps in 2021.
The Democratic-led Cobb delegation opted for maps that would keep the boundaries relatively unchanged. Republican State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb—whose husband, former legislator Earl Ehrhart, was CEO of Taylor English Decisions at the time—sponsored maps redrawn by the school board’s law firm.
Those maps were approved in the GOP-dominated legislature, while the Cobb delegation’s maps did not receive a vote. Earl Ehrhart is now managing director of Freeman Mathis Decisions, the lobbying arm of Freeman Mathis & Gary, which the board hired this year to fight the redistricting suit.
The plaintiffs’ motion concludes by asking their motion be granted by Dec. 15 “so that an interim remedial map be adopted by January 22, 2024, well in advance of the 2024 elections to avoid hardship to Cobb County’s election administration and to mitigate voter confusion.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Cobb County School District issued a strongly-worded public statement Tuesday accusing the the Cobb Board of Elections of colluding with plaintiffs who are seeking new electoral maps for the Cobb Board of Education.
The elections board voted last week along partisan lines to begin settling with parties who filed a suit contending that the school board maps passed by the Georgia legislature in 2022 violated federal voting rights laws and diluted minority voting power.
The plaintiffs, who are represented by attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal advocacy group, are attempting to have either the Georgia legislature or a court redraw the maps.
In messages posted to the Cobb school district website (you can read them here and here) and released to the media, Ben Mathis, an attorney for the district, said the district wants to rejoin the lawsuit after a “hasty settlement” with the Cobb elections board “which they worked out in secrecy with their politically allied plaintiffs, [and that] is designed to avoid any legal effort to defend the current map.
“This is not a settlement but a total surrender by the Elections Board,” Mathis said. “This agreement is a complete usurpation of the legislative process.”
The seven-member Cobb school board has a 4-3 Republican majority. The seats of three of those Republicans, including David Banks of Post 5 in East Cobb, will be the 2024 ballot.
Democrats control the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the Cobb legislative delegation, and in his statement, Mathis accused the SPLC of trying “to impose their will over the Legislature, the Governor, and the voters of Cobb County.
“After they discovered they could not change the direction of education in our county at the ballot box, they manufactured this unlawful court case,” Mathis continued.
Cobb elections board chairwoman Tori Silas
“To justify what they have done, the Elections Board says it is cheaper to give up than to defend the map against the array of liberal activist groups affiliated with Stacy Abrams and the Democratic Party.”
The Cobb elections board has four Democrats and one Republican, and voted 4-1, with GOP member Debbie Fisher opposed, to begin settlement discussions.
The vote came after a lengthy executive session and there was no discussion by elections board members in open session.
Daniel White, the attorney for the Cobb Elections Board, refuted the collusion claim, and a Cobb government spokesman issued a statement Tuesday from Tori Silas, the board chairwoman, saying her body is “not the proper party to defend the challenged redistricting maps.
“As the only remaining defendant in the case after the School District was given the dismissal it sought, we were left to make the decision that best served the citizens of Cobb County, which is what we did. The settlement allowed our Board to maintain its position of neutrality in this political dispute and was the fiscally responsible thing to do.”
In September federal judge Eleanor Ross issued an oral order precluding the Cobb school district from continuing as an intervenor in the lawsuit.
In a motion filed Tuesday, the district asked for a preliminary injunction to file an amicus brief and introduce rebuttal experts it says are necessary to respond to plaintiffs’ experts on racial discrimination in electoral maps who otherwise would have no opposition in court.
“Plaintiffs must be held to their strict burden of proof, especially when asking the Court to invade the state legislative process,” the Cobb school district lawyers said in their motion Tuesday.
East Cobb News contacted the SPLC, asking why it sued the Cobb Elections Board over a map drawn by the legislature. This is all that we received from its communications department:
“Voting rights are nonpartisan and rooted in the belief that equal opportunities to vote must be available to all people, regardless of their political affiliations, racial, cultural, or religious background. It is fundamental that every voice is heard and that elections are conducted fairly, and that is what Plaintiffs have consistently sought in this case. Plaintiffs look forward to proving their claims to the Court, as the terms of the settlement require before any changes are made to the map.”
The maps were originally drawn by Mathis’ firm, Freeman Mathis and Gary of Cumberland, and were approved by the school board’s Republican majority.
Among the changes in the map was moving Post 6 (formerly the Walton and Wheeler clusters) entirely into the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna area, and leaving East Cobb with only two school board seats, Post 4 and Post 5.
The Democratic-led Cobb legislative delegation proposed maps that wouldn’t have shifted the lines as dramatically, but they were never voted on by the Republican-dominated legislature.
The SPLC and other legal groups, including the ACLU of Georgia, filed its lawsuit, Finn v. Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, last summer.
The plaintiffs include parents and liberal activists and organizations, including the League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb.
The lawsuit seeks substantial redrawing of posts 2,3 and 6 in South Cobb, all of which are currently held by Democrats.
White said in response to the Cobb school district’s claims that “the Cobb County School District made a massive blunder in its litigation strategy that cost it the ability to defend the redistricting maps it created. Rather than owning up to its mistake, counsel for the School District has chosen to deflect attention by making outlandish accusations about the Cobb County Board of Elections that it knows to be false.”
White, whose comments were initially published Friday by The Marietta Daily Journal, said the Cobb Elections Board from the outset had sought to dismiss the suit “on jurisdictional grounds” and that his clients could have been held liable if the plaintiffs proved that the Cobb school board “adopted racially gerrymandered maps.
“The Board of Elections agrees that the District should have been allowed to continue its defense of its maps, and moved the Court to let them back in the case. Now that the Court has made it clear the District will not be given that opportunity, the Board of Elections made the decision it felt was in the best interest of the citizens of Cobb County.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration on Monday voted to hire a new elections director.
Her name is Tate Fall, and for the last year she has been the deputy elections director in Arlington County, Va.
A release issued Tuesday by Cobb County Government said that she will start Dec. 4, after municipal elections in several Cobb cities.
Fall will succeed Janine Eveler, who retired in April after serving in the role for 12 years.
Since July, the Cobb Elections office has been led on an interim basis by Gerry Miller, an assistant Cobb elections director in 2021 who also had retired from the department.
The search was extended because a lack of qualified candidates in the initial search.
In Tuesday’s release, Cobb Elections Board chairwoman Tori Silas said that “it was difficult to find someone with the level of experience needed along with the zeal for this job. We believe we have found the right person at the right time.”
Fall is a graduate of Auburn University and holds a master’s degree in public administration and a graduate certificate in election administration.
She also has worked for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency of the U.S. government. According to its website, its “mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Nick Simpson, who ran for Cobb Superior Court Clerk in 2020, is seeking the same office in 2024 under very different circumstances.
A Democrat who lives in Acworth, Simpson said he is running for the seat held by Democratic incumbent Connie Taylor and is holding listening sessions.
He said in a release Tuesday that he’s doing this in part “to discuss the need for transparency and accountability in light of current fiscal practices at the clerk’s office that have been highlighted in recent news reports.”
In addition to maintaining court records and providing passport services, the Superior Court Clerk also is the custodian of real estate records and is one of four county elected officials whose position is created by the Georgia Constitution.
Simpson, who graduated from North Cobb High School and attended Powers Ferry Elementary School and Daniell Middle School, is a former chief operating officer of the Cobb Superior Court Clerk’s office.
In his release Tuesday, Simpson said he “seeks to prepare the Clerk’s office to meet the demands of the future by addressing technological needs caused by the proliferation of cyber and property fraud, and the county’s strong population growth and real estate market.”
In announcing his 2024 campaign, Simpson said he supports the clerk having to transfer all fees from processing passport applications to the county treasury.
His other priorities include installing a in-house property fraud detection system to “detect incidents of fraud in real-time and not after a phony document has been sent to an outside party for review.”
Simpson was a coordinator for a family law information center in Fulton Superior Court and held government positions in New York before returning to Cobb.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University and a master’s degree in public administration from Columbia University.
Simpson also founded a consultancy to advise clients on implementing secure document control systems and procedures.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Since a sliver of our coverage area includes easternmost portions of the City of Marietta, here’s a public notice about upcoming hearings on new city council and school board boundaries, with the first coming on Wednesday:
“The City of Marietta has proposed a new ward political boundary map that will determine which ward the citizens of Marietta will cast their vote in future elections. The proposed map is titled “Proposed Wards School and Parks Draft Option 2”. All concerned citizens are invited to attend the two public hearings on this redistricting map which will be held at Marietta City Hall, 205 Lawrence Street in the Council Chamber on Wednesday, September 13, 2023, at 7:00 P.M. and Wednesday, October 11, 2023, at 7:00 P.M. According to Federal law, the City of Marietta is required to redraw the ward boundaries to accommodate for the shifting change in population every ten years as determined by the U.S. Decennial Census.”
Those two hearings will take place during regularly scheduled city council meetings.
A couple of notes: We’ve been reporting on redistricting feuds over Cobb county commission and school board seats. The former involves a home rule claim over maps reapportioned by the county, and the latter is in federal court over voting-rights issues.
In Georgia, municipalities draw their own electoral maps after a new Census is released. A special committee of city council and school board members has been meeting to propose the map boundaries (see larger version of above map here).
As of July 2022 (Census overview here), Marietta has an estimated population of around 62,000, with each of the seven wards on the city council and school board including around 8,700 people.
The eastern part of the city includes all of wards 6 and 7 and a portion of ward 3.
Marietta’s next elections are scheduled for 2025. All of Cobb’s other six cities, including newly incorporated Mableton, will have non-partisan city council elections on Nov. 7.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson has launched a website and filed initial paperwork to run for the 6th District Congressional seat that includes some of East Cobb.
The first-term Democrat, whose tenure on the board is the subject of an ongoing legal dispute over redistricting, is holding a kickoff event for her Congressional bid next week.
On Thursday she announced on her campaign’s social media outlets to “join us for our big announcement in 6 DAYS!”
She’s accepting donations on Jerica for Congress website, as well as RSVPs for a kickoff event next Thursday at the Avalon mixed-use development in Alpharetta.
That’s currently within the boundaries of the new 6th Congressional District, which was redrawn by the Republican-dominated Georgia legislature after Democrat Lucy McBath won the seat in 2018.
Those boundaries included East Cobb, North Fulton, Sandy Springs and some of Buckhead.
Last year McBath, a black Democrat, won the 7th Congressional District seat based largely in Gwinnett.
But a federal lawsuit has been filed challenging the Georgia U.S. House maps, contending that they were drawn to dilute minority voting strength.
Richardson resides in the new 6th District, but reapportionment drew her out of her East Cobb home in District 2. Her term expires at the end of next year.
Her Congressional campaign website doesn’t include priorities or other specifics other than some basic biographical information.
“Jerica’s success lies in recognizing that what connects us is far greater than what separates us,” the website states. “Solving problems through collaboration and empowering others is a way of life for Jerica and she wants to put that to work for the citizens of Georgia’s 6th Congressional District.”
She and the board’s other two Democrats approved maps last fall that would have kept her in her commission seat. A lawsuit was filed by Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill to challenge Cobb’s decision to invoke home rule, arguing that only the legislature can conduct reapportionment.
Gambrill was denied standing in the suit in Cobb Superior Court but a hearing on its merits is scheduled for November.
Congressional maps showing metro Atlanta seats. Source: Georgia Legislative and Congressional Reapportionment Office
The new 6th District includes some of East Cobb, North Fulton and Sandy Springs, and Republican strongholds in Forsyth in Dawson counties were added.
That seat was won last November by Republican Rich McCormick, who got 62 percent of the vote in the general election over Democrat Bob Christian, who has filed to run again in 2024.
A trial began this week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, following a ruling last week that struck down a Republican-majority Congressional maps in Alabama for similar reasons. The state has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richardson was elected in 2020 in her first campaign for public office to succeed three-term Republican commissioner Bob Ott.
According to Federal Election Commission reports, Richardson filed her campaign paperwork on Aug. 16.
In addition to Christian and Richardson, another Democrat has filed to run. Shelly Abraham of Duluth, a mechanical consulting engineer, is a first-time candidate for public office.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A Cobb Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that Cobb Commissioner Keli Gambrill doesn’t have standing in lawsuits she filed to contest the county’s invocation of home rule over redistricting.
Judge Ann Harris said that Gambrill, a Republican who represents District 1 in Northwest Cobb, failed to show specific harm done to her when the commission’s three Democrats last fall voted to implement commission maps they preferred over those adopted last year by the Georgia legislature.
In court filings, Gambrill—who said she was acting as a private citizen in the lawsuits—said the uncertainty over the maps may affect if she’s re-elected and where she would be voting.
But Harris noted that Gambrill was re-elected last year after being unopposed and that her district lines changed little.
“At best, the concerns raised by Gambrill are generalized and according to her, shared by all citizens,” Harris wrote. “They are not particular to Gambrill, and therefore, they are not sufficient to show an injury in fact to Gambrill. Several of her claims arise from her official capacity and are not relevant to this suit. As a result, Plaintiff Gambrill has no standing to proceed on these claims and her case ends here.”
Harris said the other plaintiffs, Catherine and David Floam, can remain, since they are residents of District 3 in East Cobb that is at the heart of the map dispute.
Maps approved by the Cobb commission’s Democrats would keep Jerica Richardson of East Cobb in the District 2 (in pink) that she currently represents.
They had been in District 1 and voted there in 2022, but the Democratic maps that are being recognized by the county placed them in District 3.
The Democratic maps dramatically altered the two districts in East Cobb. Jerica Richardson of District 2 was drawn out of her home by the legislative maps, which put most of East Cobb in District 3, represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell.
Birrell was re-elected under the legislative maps last year but did not get involved in the lawsuits. She attended a July 7 hearing in Harris’ chamber on the issue of standing.
Attorney General Chris Carr, while issuing an opinion this spring that the Cobb Democratic maps are not legal, said his office cannot get involved until there is a legal action.
The county filed for home rule to keep Richardson, a first-term Democrat, in office. Her term ends in 2024, and she has repeatedly claimed that drawing her out of her district during her term has been unprecedented in Georgia.
She started a non-profit education organization, For Which It Stance, to advocate for local government control on a number of issues.
Gambrill and Birrell have said their Democratic colleagues’ action is unconstitutional because only the legislature can conduct reapportionment.
Cobb commission maps passed by the Georgia legislature would include most of East Cobb in District 3 (gold).
Gambrill also filed a suit to have the Democratic maps ruled unconstitutional and replaced with those adopted by the legislature. She initially filed the lawsuits in March with former Cobb Commission Chairman candidate Larry Savage of East Cobb, who later withdrew.
She spent her own money to hire Ray Smith, an Atlanta attorney, who argued on her and the Floams’ behalf at the July hearing before Harris.
On Tuesday, Smith was indicted by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, along with former President Donald Trump and 17 others accused of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
Both of the redistricting lawsuits are before Harris, who has scheduled a Nov. 20 hearing on the county’s motion for judgment.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The group For Which It Stance, a non-profit started by Cobb District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson, is holding a panel discussion event next week to discuss political redistricting.
Jerica Richardson
What’s billed as part of the “Sip n’ Save Democracy Series” takes place next Friday, Aug. 18, from 6-9 p.m., at the Grits & Eggs Breakfast Kitchen (3205 Cumberland Boulevard, Suite 105).
“Our knowledgeable speakers will provide top-shelf insight into recent redistricting cases and what they see coming ahead of the next election cycle,” the For Which It Stance event item states.
Richardson, a first-term Democrat, and the two other Democrats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners are contesting redistricting maps passed last year by the Georgia legislature that drew Richardson out of her East Cobb home.
In challenging the maps, Richardson said she was responding to an unprecedented legislative action, as the Republican-dominated General Assembly did not vote on maps approved by Cobb’s Democratic-majority delegation.
East Cobb resident Debbie Fisher filed an ethics complaint against Richardson earlier this year, saying she was engaging in a conflict of interest via For Which It Stance, which seeks to “educate, engage and empower” citizens about issues relating to local control.
Another page on that site, entitled “Drawn Out GA,” includes suggestions for fundraising amounts, which Fisher claimed constituted an ethics violation.
But the Cobb Board of Ethics dismissed the complaint in March. Fisher was later appointed to the Cobb Board of Elections by the Cobb Republican Party.
A hearing on the county’s attempt to invoke home rule was held last month in Cobb Superior Court. Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill has filed a suit against that provision, saying only the legislature can conduct reapportionment.
Another court hearing for her motion to be granted standing is scheduled for Aug. 30.
Richardson’s term expires at the end of 2024.
For more information on next week’s redistricting event, including registration, click here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A Cobb County political organization with ties to the Tea Party is urging the Cobb Board of Commissioners to vote against holding a transit tax referendum in 2024.
The Franklin Roundtable, which labels itself “a non-partisan advocacy group based in Marietta,” said its board of directors has voted unanimously to oppose the proposed tax.
Cobb commissioners are expected to decide later this whether to call for a transit tax referendum after voting along party-lines in March to hire a consultant to plan for such a referendum.
Jim Jess, chairman of Franklin Roundtable, said in release that “the transit tax is nothing but a boondoggle. We need serious traffic solutions. But what do we get from our commissioners? Empty buses on Cobb County streets. Multimillion dollar transportation studies that make consultants rich. And transit proposals that won’t improve traffic flow. Who is being served by this? It’s certainly not the citizens of Cobb County.”
The three Democrats on the board voted to hire the consultant, Kimley-Horn & Associates, to prepare for what’s being called the Cobb Mobility SPLOST.
It’s a one-percent, special-purpose local-option sales tax that Democratic Chairwoman Lisa Cupid has proposed to be collected for 30 years for a variety of transportation purposes, including mass transit as well as traditional transportation options, including resurfacing.
The two Republicans voted against hiring the consultant, and have said they’re opposed to such a long tax-collection period.
GOP commissioner JoAnn Birrell of East Cobb has publicly supported a five-year tax for road transportation projects.
The Franklin Roundtable, named after Benjamin Franklin, is a non-profit that supports limited government, free markets and fiscal responsibility. Its website states that since 2018, it has been the “official public name” of the Georgia Tea Party Inc.
“Most of our current commissioners are not serious about real traffic solutions, and they are not fiscally responsible,” Jess said. “They are more concerned about serving the economic development lobby and the consultant lobby. County spending reflects this year after year.”
Much of the group’s statement focused on mass transit, which it called “an idea best left in the previous century.”
Instead, the Franklin Roundtable suggested in one example that the county contract with Uber or Lyft to help those needing transportation to work.
The group also suggested building flyover lanes or access roads to bypass busy intersections, and the purchase of vans that are “smaller and can move through traffic more quickly” than more expensive buses.
Jess said that “solutions like the ones we are talking about are simply common sense. We need our commissioners to make some better decisions, beginning with dropping the idea of a transit tax. It really doesn’t make sense for our situation in Cobb County.”
The Franklin Roundtable release said that should there be a referendum, it will work with “a coalition of likeminded citizens and organizations to defeat this wasteful, ineffective and unnecessary tax.”
Cobb DOT officials told commissioners in March that part of the consultant’s work was to conduct further outreach, following an objection to a 30-year tax from the mayor of Cobb’s cities.
Cobb DOT has not yet released a detailed project list of what might be used with tax revenues.
Department head Drew Raessler said this spring more input is being is being sought from citizens and in cities and community improvement projects to hear “what type of projects they would like to see.”
He has said that more transit solutions need to be provided to Cobb citizens so the county can continue to grow economically.
Cupid said at the same March meeting to hire the consultant that “I think we have a significant opportunity to invest in our future, at least just to ask the citizens the questions, to flesh out with the mayors what the options are.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb Board of Education candidate John Cristadoro said Friday that a number of prominent business, community, educational and political leaders have endorsed his campaign for the East Cobb-based Post 5 seat.
They include former Cobb commissioner and Georgia Public Service commissioner Stan Wise, Superior Plumbing CEO Jay Cunningham and former Cobb Republican Party chairs Scott Johnson and Rose Wing.
Cristadoro is a Republican with two children in the Walton attendance zone who is seeking the seat currently held by GOP school board vice chairman David Banks, who has not said said if he will be seeking a fifth term next year.
The Post 5 seat includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope attendance zones. Democrat Laura Judge, also a parent in the Walton zone, has announced her candidacy.
Cristadoro is a first-time candidate but has compiled a lengthy list of influential supporters he’s calling his “campaign leadership team.”
They include John Loud, CEO of Loud Security Systems and a former chairman of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce and Scott Sweeney, a former school board member from East Cobb who’s the current chairman of the Georgia Board of Education.
Cunningham is one of four current members of the Cobb County School District’s Finance and Technology Committee that conducts oversight of the education SPLOST to endorse Cristadoro.
The others are Shane Spink, a community leader in the Sprayberry High School area and Wayne Brown, an engineer, both appointed by Post 4 Republican school board member David Chastain.
Lesley Litt, business executive, was appointed by Republican Brad Wheeler and Cunningham by Republican Randy Scamihorn.
The seats held by Banks, Wheeler, Scamihorn and Democrat Tre’ Hutchins will be up for election in 2024.
As East Cobb News first reported earlier this month, Cristadoro has raised nearly $30,000—loaning his campaign $10,000—for what’s expected to be an expensive campaign. Judge has raised nearly $9,000.
In his release Friday, Cristadoro said of his new supporters that “I am very honored these known leaders have chosen to join our campaign team. They will be very beneficial in assisting our campaign goal to keep the Cobb County School District strong and a recognized leader in academics.”
Stan Wise—Former Ga. Public Commissioner, Cobb County Commissioner
Jay Cunningham—CEO of Superior Plumbing, CCSD F & T Committee
Scott Johnson—Served on Georgia Board of Education; previous Chairman of Cobb GOP
Shane Spink—F & T Committee Member for CCSD and businessman
Alice Stouder—Former Cobb school district assistant superintendent
Wayne Brown—Member of CCSD F & T Committee
Lawson Kirkland—Senior V.P. in the banking industry
Peter Heinzleman—Former CEO of Cobb EMC and current business owner
Lesley Litt—Immediate Past Chair of CCSD F & T Committee and CEO of CrystalFlex
Hilda Wilkins—Retired Cobb school principal and Director of Accreditation for Cobb Schools
Dan Joy—Principal with Rule Joy Tramell & Rule Architecture Design
Dan Payrow—President of R.S. Andrews
Rose Wing—Attorney and former Cobb assistant district attorney and previous Cobb GOP Chair
Tracy Cullo—Chair of East Cobb Republican Women’s Club
Simone Thomas—East Cobb Community resident and community activist
Irey Sanders—Regional V.P of Brasfield & Gorrie
Pam & Tom Reardon—Cobb Republican activists
Bob Kilinski—Regional Operating Partner Keller Williams International
Jeff Chassner—Chief Sales Officer at New Realm
Lewis Lampley—Senior Clinical Research at Boston Scientific
Stephanie Joseph—East Cobb Resident and community activist.
Ryan Casey—Owner of Paper Connexion
Michael Trent—CEO of Trent Consulting and youth baseball coach
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A federal judge has said a group of plaintiffs suing over redistricting of Cobb Board of Education seats doesn’t have a legal claim against the Cobb County School District.
Cobb Board of Education maps passed by the legislature were first recommended by the school board’s Republican majority.
That doesn’t end the lawsuit, filed on behalf of several plaintiffs by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU and other attorneys.
Judge Eleanor Ross also ruled against the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration, the defendant, to have the suit dismissed entirely.
Plaintiffs claimed that the Georgia legislature, which passed the new maps last year, violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act and used race as a guiding factor in redrawing the seven school board posts.
Those actions included Post 2 and 3 in South Cobb and Post 6, which had covered most of the Walton and Wheeler high school attendance zones, and which was moved out of East Cobb, and mostly into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area.
Among the claims made by the plaintiffs was that the Cobb Board of Education’s four-member white Republican majority “voted on racial lines and without substantive debate to hire—at great expense to the county—a consulting firm to draw a proposed map” and that the process “both the hiring of a third party to draw the redistricting maps and the Board’s decision to forego bids from multiple firms— strayed from the Board’s past practices.”
That map was adopted by the legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp and went into effect for the 2022 elections.
The lawsuit seeks to declare the drawing of posts 2, 3 and 6 unconstitutional based and to order the legislature to draw a new map.
But in a ruling issued Tuesday, Ross, of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta said that “the Court finds that the above allegations are insufficient to establish a ‘longstanding and widespread practice’ by the District of recommending a racially gerrymandered map for the Board of Education elections in Cobb County.”
Ross, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, issued the ruling nearly a month after a hearing in her courtroom.
The Cobb school district hired an outside law firm as it sought a judgment that it shouldn’t be held liable for a redistricting map approved by the state legislature.
In a release issued late Thursday afternoon, the Cobb school district said the following:
“The suit is an unfortunate extension of efforts by political activists and organizations to exert influence in Cobb County’s schools. . . .
“While the Court’s opinion frees the District and its Board members from baseless accusations of racial discrimination, the District continues to be concerned that Cobb County Board of Elections, a politically appointed body, chose not to join the District in asking Judge Ross to rule in its favor and conclude the lawsuit.”
The SPLC issued the following statement from Poy Winichakul, one of its attorneys for voting rights:
“Despite the district’s mischaracterizations of the court’s order and the case itself,we are pleased that the plaintiffs’ case against the Board of Elections is moving forward. Judge Ross declined to rule on any of the district’s arguments related to the map. What this means is that our case is proceeding exactly as plaintiffs originally pled it last summerand the district will no longer spend the county’s resources litigating the case, but instead will return to its important job of educating the students of Cobb County. We look forward to proving our case on the merits.”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
David Chastain, a third-term member of the Cobb Board of Education, has been fined $250 and ordered to pay back a portion of two campaign contributions from last year that were deemed to be a violation of state campaign finance limits.
The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission ruled last month that two donations Chastain’s campaign received exceeded state limits and that his campaign didn’t file the proper paperwork to separate them between the primary and general election.
A Republican, Chastain was re-elected last year to serve Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry high school clusters, after a bitter general election campaign against Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
Neither of them had a primary opponent last March. Pozniak, a Sprayberry High School graduate who took an early fundraising lead over Chastain, accused him of violating state laws limiting the amounts of individual contributors three weeks before the general electdion.
One of them was a total of $5,000 from State Rep. Ginny Erhart, a West Cobb Republican who filed reapportionment maps for the Cobb school board and Cobb Board of Commissioners that were passed by the legislature.
Another was $4,000 from Jonathan Crumly, an attorney with Taylor English Duma who drew the school board maps. Erhart’s husband, former State Rep. Earl Erhart, was the CEO of Taylor English Decisions LLC, the lobbying arm of the law firm, last year.
The individual limit under Georgia campaign finance law is $3,000, and Chastain later filed amended reports that split the contributions in two.
He said his campaign mistakenly forgot to separate the contributions from Ginny Erhart and Crumly. But the state campaign finance commission, in a June 26 consent order, concluded that Chastain didn’t file the necessary paperwork to bundle the donations.
At the time, Chastain said Pozniak’s complaint was “baseless and politics at its worst,” and showed “a deliberate attempt by Catherine Pozniak and her small platoon of Democratic socialists [that] is on full display by Cobb County.”
A few days after the Pozniak complaint was filed, Ginny Erhart issued a press release claiming Pozniak fraudulently filed a senior school tax exemption for her late father’s home.
Pozniak denied the charge and said that “for Mr. Chastain and his political cronies to retaliate with a smear campaign launched on a family tragedy is beyond reprehensible.”
Chastain defeated Pozniak with 54 percent of the vote as Republicans kept a 4-3 majority on the Cobb school board.
The school board map sponsored by Ginny Erhart is the subject of a federal lawsuit that the Cobb County School District has joined.
Earl Erhart is now the managing director of Freeman Mathis Decisions, the lobbying group for Freeman Matbis and Gary, which the Cobb school district has hired to represent it in the lawsuit.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
