Cobb County will no longer challenge commission electoral maps that have been at the heart of a nearly two-year-long legal dispute.
But that doesn’t mean that the chaos and confusion that’s accompanied that saga is over.
Commissioners will be asked to consider on Tuesday an agenda item that “acknowledges a finding” that “home rule maps” approved by the commission’s three Democrats in 2022 be dropped in favor of legislative-approved maps that drew District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her seat.
That’s after a Cobb Superior Court judge declared the “home rule” maps a violation of the Georgia Constitution, since only the Georgia legislature can conduct county reapportionment.
Judge Kellie Hill then ordered special elections for the District 2 and District 4 commission primaries in which the home rule maps were used.
Those elections may not be decided until June of 2025. The earliest they would be finalized would be next April, according to schedules approved last week by the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration.
According to a state law cited in an agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting, should the commissioners adopt the legislative maps, Richardson would no longer be a legal resident of District 2, and that office must be vacated.
The agenda item calls for approving “notice to the sitting District 2 Commissioner that the office is deemed vacant” and states that the county must give 10 days’ notice “before proceeding to fill the vacancy.”
The agenda item (you can read it here) doesn’t indicate how that vacancy might be filled, or even if it will.
In response to a request for clarification from East Cobb News, Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said that providing a notice to vacate the District 2 office came from the Cobb County Attorney’s Office, citing State Code of Georgia provisions for filling vacancies in local elected offices.
When asked what such a process might entail for vacating the District 2 seat, Cavitt said that “there will be more discussion on this Monday.”
That’s when commissioners will meet in a work session to go over Tuesday’s agenda items.
Richardson is a first-term Democrat who moved from the Delk Road area to a home off Post Oak Tritt Road shortly after her election in 2020. That’s when District 2 included a sizable portion of East Cobb.
In 2022, however, the Georgia legislature ignored maps drawn by the Cobb delegation that would have kept Richardson in District 2. Instead, lawmakers approved maps that put most of East Cobb, including her home, 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.
Richardson, Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and District 4 Commissioner Monique Sheffield—the board’s Democratic majority—voted to approve the Cobb delegation maps, claiming home rule authority.
Richardson’s term was to expire at the end of this year, but as the dispute dragged on, she decided not to seek re-election, and instead ran unsuccessfully for Congress in May.
East Cobb News has left a message with Richardson seeking comment on the possibility of having to vacate her seat. If she is forced to do so, she could have that notice reviewed in Cobb Superior Court.
The county complained that Hill’s ruling to order special elections would be costly to county taxpayers and that the possibility existed of having a three-member board, instead of the full complement of five elected commissioners.
Hill said that nothing in her order calling for special elections implied that there would vacancies, indicating that Richardson and Sheffield could continue serving until the special elections are held.
Birrell and Republican Commissioner Keli Gambrill have said the same thing for several months.
In her July 25 decision, Hill ruled on an appeal by a Republican candidate, Alicia Adams, who had been disqualified for the District 2 primary under the home rule maps, which the Cobb elections board was following.
Adams lives within those boundaries under the legislative maps, but East Cobb resident Mindy Seger, a Democratic activist and ally of Richardson, challenged her qualification under the home rule maps.
The commission meeting begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
The full agenda can be found by clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
Related:
- Cobb judge upholds decision to call special elections
- 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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