New elections to fill two seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners were ordered on Thursday by a Cobb Superior Court judge, who threw out recent primary results in deciding a long-standing electoral map dispute.
Judge Kellie Hill said in her ruling that the May 21 primaries as well as a June runoff for one of the seats were conducted using electoral maps that violate the Georgia Constitution.
She said the commission’s Democratic majority was not authorized to approve “home rule” maps in 2022 that were used by the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration this year because reapportionment is a function of the Georgia legislature.
Hill said that special primaries and special elections for seats in District 2—which had included some of East Cobb—and District 4 in South Cobb will be necessary following the November elections, using maps approved by the General Assembly in 2022.
She waited until after the Georgia Supreme Court threw out a separate lawsuit on a technicality in May to hear a different complaint against the Cobb elections board.
In her decision Thursday, Hill ruled on an appeal by a Republican candidate, Alicia Adams, who had been disqualified for the District 2 race under the home rule maps.
(You can read Hill’s ruling by clicking here.)
Adams lives within those boundaries under the legislative maps, but East Cobb resident Mindy Seger, a Democratic activist and ally of current District 2 Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson, challenged her qualification under the home rule maps.
The elections board ruled Adams didn’t qualify under the home rule maps.
Hill referenced a ruling in January by Cobb Superior Court Judge Ann Harris in another case that the home rule maps were unconstitutional.
“The Court, having ruled the Home Rule Map unconstitutional in the companion appeal finds the Plaintiff has a clear legal right to seek qualification for the Cobb County Commission, Post 2, using the Legislative Map, if qualified, to run for a special primary in that post,” Hill states in the ruling.
“The Court finds that the Plantiff is entitled to a writ of mandamus requiring the Cobb BOER to cease using the Home Rule Map for future elections and qualification purposes” as well as requiring the special elections.
The Cobb elections board said in a statement Friday that it would schedule those elections “as soon as practicable afterwards” but didn’t indicate when that might be.
Most voters in East Cobb who cast ballots in the District 2 primary and runoff will not be able to do so in the special elections because the legislative-approved maps are now in force.
Democrat Jaha Howard, a former member of the Cobb Board of Education, won a Democratic runoff in District 2. The only Republican on the primary ballot was Pamela Reardon of East Cobb.
But Reardon won’t be able to run in the special election because she lives in District 3 under the legislative maps.
The legislative maps have most of East Cobb in District 3, represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell. District 2 includes most of the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area, as well as the I-75 corridor north to Marietta and the Town Center area.
The commission Democrats decided to test the home rule provision after Cobb Republican legislators ignored maps drawn up by the Democrat-led county legislative delegation that would have kept Jerica Richardson, one of those Democrats, in her seat.
The legislative maps drew Richardson out of her home in East Cobb, and commissioners voted 3-2 along partisan lines in October 2022 to follow the delegation maps.
In a statement issued Friday, the Cobb elections board said that Hill’s order “confirmed the Board of Elections’ long stated position that it did not have authority to declare the Home Rule Map resolution unconstitutional of its own accord.”
With the legal issues pending, Richardson ran for Congress in May, but lost in the Democratic primary to U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in the 6th District.
Howard was one of five Democrats running in the primary to succeed Richardson, along with former State Rep. Erick Allen, who drew up what became known as the home rule maps.
In District 4, current first-term Democratic commissioner Monique Sheffield won the May primary, and was facing no Republican opposition in November.
But she’ll have to qualify and run again in the new special primary and election for that seat.
Those are the only two district seats up this year. The race for Cobb Commission Chair is unaffected, since it’s countywide. Democratic Chairwoman Lisa Cupid is seeking a second term against Republican Kay Morgan in November.
The terms of the commission’s two Republicans, Birrell and Keli Gambrill—an initial plaintiff in the lawsuit thrown out by the Georgia Supreme Court—run through 2026.
Cupid said in a statement on Friday that “I respect the judge’s ruling and we are assessing how to move forward.”
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt told East Cobb News later Friday in response to a question if the county would appeal by saying that “there has been no discussion at this point about any further legal action.”
It remains unclear what would happen when the District 2 and District 4 terms expire at the end of the year, since elections are unlikely to be called before then.
And it’s also uncertain if Richardson will have to step down before her term expires at the end of the year, since district commissioners must reside within those boundaries.
Related:
- 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
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
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!
This was always going to be the outcome in the courts. The democratic majority tried a long shot at the expense of the people of East Cobb and should pay the political price for it.