In what appears to be the end of the road in a long, drawn-out dispute over Cobb Commission electoral maps, a Superior Court judge Tuesday denied the county government’s last-ditch attempt to intervene in a case that’s resulted in special elections for two of the four district commission seats.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said Wednesday that Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid “will propose an agenda item for commissioners at Tuesday’s BOC [meeting] to accept the ruling and move forward in good faith.”
Judge Kellie Hill affirmed her ruling from July that the “home rule” maps the county has been using since October 2022 are unconstitutional and that the May primary elections using them must be vacated.
That was after a Republican candidate for Cobb Commission District 2 was disqualified for not living within the map boundaries the county was observing.
In her order, Hill called for special elections using maps approved by the Georgia legislature in 2022, saying Adams lives within the District 2 boundaries in those maps.
The special elections would be scheduled for early next year, according to actions taken last week by the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration.
During a hearing Tuesday, the county argued that special elections would cost Cobb taxpayers—perhaps hundreds of thousand of dollars—and that the five-member commission could be reduced to three by January 2025.
That’s when the terms of current District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson and present District 4 Commissioner Monique Sheffield expire.
But in upholding her ruling—and a point the Cobb elections board also made in its brief—Hill said the commissioners—specifically, the three Democrats in the majority who voted for the home rule maps—acted to disenfranchise voters with an improper, unconstitutional map.
She said that nothing in her order calling for special elections implied that there would be a three-person board, clarifying that Richardson and Sheffield could continue serving until the special elections are held.
The Georgia Constitution mandates that the legislature conduct county reapportionment. The “home rule” challenge was a bid to keep Richardson in her seat, after the General Assembly drew her out of her East Cobb home.
Adams filed her complaint against the Cobb elections board, which was observing the “home rule” maps. The county was not a party to that complaint, and its emergency motion to intervene—four months after the fact—was denounced by the elections board and Adams’ attorney.
It’s also not clear when the legislative maps would start to be used by the county. The “home rule” maps included areas of East Cobb in District 2.
In the legislative maps, most of East Cobb is included in District 3, represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell, who was re-elected with those maps in 2022.
Richardson, a Democrat who barely won the District 2 race in 2020 to succeed retiring Republican Commissioner Bob Ott, is not seeking a second term.
She ran for 6th District Congress and was routed in the primary by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath.
The District 2 Democratic primary was won by former Cobb Board of Education member Jaha Howard in a runoff.
Sheffield easily won the Democratic primary in District 4 and was facing no Republican opposition in the general election.
The Cobb elections board last week set two sets of dates to re-do the primaries: from Feb. 11 to April 29 if there are general election runoffs in November; or from March 18-June 17 if there are not runoffs.
Related:
- Absentee ballot request period for Cobb, Ga. underway
- Cobb Elections Board opposes county’s redistricting appeal
- Advance voting schedule for Cobb general election approved
- Cobb special elections scheduled as map dispute lingers
- Cobb to appeal court order for new commission elections
- New commission elections ordered in redistricting ruling
- MORE: Visit the East Cobb News Politics & Elections Page
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