Cobb special elections scheduled as map dispute lingers

The Cobb Board of Elections is moving ahead with special elections for commission races as a long-standing legal saga over redistricting continues elsewhere in county government.

The elections board on Monday approved two sets of special-election schedules for Cobb Commission races in Districts 2 and 4 for early 2025 after Cobb Superior Court Judge Kellie Hill vacated May primaries for those seats.

If there are December runoffs from the November general elections, those special commission elections would start on Jan. 20 and end on April 7.

If there are not runoffs, the two commission seats would be determined in voting from Feb. 12 through June 17.

The special-election dates coincide with previously scheduled municipal elections in Cobb County, but would come after the commission seats of current commissioners Jerica Richardson (District 2) and Monique Sheffield (District 4) expire on Dec. 31.

It’s not clear what might happen with two vacancies on the commission, which would go from a 3-2 Democratic majority to a 2-1 edge for Republicans.

On July 25, Hill ruled that May primaries using “home rule” maps approved by the Cobb Board of Commissioners’ Democratic majority for the two district commission elections were unconstitutional, because they weren’t adopted by the Georgia legislature.

Hill was ruling on a petition by Alicia Adams, a Republican who was disqualified in District 2 because she lives in the boundaries set by the legislature.

She filed her complaint against the Cobb elections board, which was honoring the “home rule” maps. The board Democrats in October 2022 claimed the county had home rule powers under the Georgia Constitution to conduct redistricting, after the legislature ignored maps drawn up by the Cobb legislative delegation.

But Hill affirmed a January ruling by Cobb Superior Court Judge Ann Harris that the county had no authority to redraw its own political maps, saying it was solely the responsibility of the legislature.

Late last week, the Cobb County Attorney’s Office filed an emergency motion to intervene in the Adams case, even though the county was not named as a defendant (you can read the motion here).

On Tuesday morning, Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid defended the county’s decision to seek intervention, saying “a great harm was done to our county” when the Georgia legislature ignored the Cobb delegation maps.

Home rule powers were claimed by the three Democrats—Cupid, Richardson and Sheffield—in a bid to keep Richardson in office.

The first-term Democrat was drawn out of her East Cobb home in the legislative maps, which placed most of East Cobb in District 3, represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell.

“There has been no effort to circumvent the Constitution,” Cupid said in remarks at the commission’s regular meeting. “However, there has been an effort to circumvent the votes of many voters who voted for each one of us who are sitting here today.

“There has been an effort to circumvent on trusting what the local delegation in putting forward a map for the Board of Commissioners. That has been a process over the 12 years that I have been here. There has been very little objection or question about why that was circumvented.”

Her remarks followed continuing statements by Birrell and Gambrill, the board’s two Republicans, who were opposed to the decision to try to intervene in the Adams case.

The home rule challenge, Birrell said, has gone on nearly two years “at taxpayers’ expense and should never have been done to begin with. We all took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, of the State of Georgia, and of Cobb County. Follow the law.”

Gambrill—an original plaintiff in a related Cobb home rule case that reached the Georgia Supreme Court but was not decided on the merits—called Cobb’s action “the path of anarchy.”

In its emergency motion, the Cobb County Attorney’s Office noted that in addition to the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in expenses that would be needed for special elections, Hill’s injunction “could potentially deprive half of Cobb County from having any representation on the BOC until June of 2025 at the earliest.”

Cobb Republican Party Chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs said during a public comment period earlier in Tuesday’s meeting that the county has only itself to blame for that.

“With the chaos you people have created, you’re going to make the taxpayers pay for that,” Grubbs said, “when it’s your responsibility and it’s your quest for power over Cobb County that has caused this situation.

“You refuse to acknowledge the fact that you violated your oath and Ms. Richardson should not be sitting on the dais. You have protected her at all costs in that seat so that you can have the majority.”

Richardson, who declined to seek a second term and instead launched an unsuccessful bid for Congress has not publicly commented on the matter.

Former Cobb school board member Jaha Howard won the Democratic primary in District 2 and Sheffield cruised in the Democratic primary in District 4.

Later in the meeting Tuesday, commissioners voted 4-1 to approve $2.4 million in additional spending for the 2024 elections due to costs associated with the presidential election, as well as one-time costs for technology and equipment, security at polling stations and seasonal personnel (poll workers).

Cobb elections director Tate Fall said that funding includes more than $624,000 that is being earmarked for the commission special elections.

Gambrill voted against the measure.

Related:

• Cobb to appeal court order for new commission elections
• New commission elections ordered in redistricting ruling
• Cobb warns of text scam to apply for an absentee ballot
• Trump campaign opens volunteer office in East Cobb
• Howard cruises in Cobb commission runoff election
• Primary results: DA defeated; Commission race heads to runoff
• Cobb redistricting lawsuit dismissed by Ga. Supreme Court
• Cobb school board Post 5 candidates receive endorsements
• MORE: Visit the East Cobb News Politics & Elections Page

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