State lawmakers on Monday advanced a bill out of committee that would ban counties from amending their own district map, targeting the Cobb Commission after it changed its own electoral map last year.
State Sen. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) presented Senate Bill 124 to the Reapportionment and Redistricting committee as a measure to clarify in Georgia code that the Georgia Constitution’s Home Rule statute, which gives counties some power to override the Legislature on local matters, does not allow for redistricting.
“Let’s make it crystal clear,” Setzler said during the hearing. “Counties do not have the power to apportion themselves.”
But Cobb officials have argued that the home rule provision does allow for redistricting, and county Attorney Bill Rowling has previously said that the issue will need to be interpreted by a judge.
Last year, Republican lawmakers approved a map that would have drawn sitting Commissioner Jerica Richardson, one of the board’s three Democrats, out of her district halfway through her term. To prevent her from being disqualified from office, the county installed its own map using the lines drawn by Democratic lawmakers — an unprecedented move that was challenged last week in a new lawsuit, and has been decried by state officials as unconstitutional.
At Monday’s hearing, senators asked whether Richardson would be able to serve out the rest of her term despite not residing in her district.
“If we’re drawing people out of their districts while they are in their seats serving that is absolutely unfortunate,” said Sen. Tonya Anderson (D-Lithonia).
Stuart Morelli with the Office is Legislative Counsel said it’s “not completely clear” how the issue of removing Richardson from office would play out in the court system.
“There’s just not a lot of great case law to interpret how this would happen,” he said.
Lawmakers were split evenly on the measure but ultimately approved it when the committee’s chair, Sen. Shelly Echols, made the tie-breaking favorable vote.
“If it’s just restating the constitution, I don’t see an issue,” said Sen. Blake Tillery (R-Vidalia). “A county is clearly a sub-unit of state government.”
But advocates from the political advocacy committee Richardson founded, For Which It Stance, opposed the bill and said the home rule provision in the constitution needs to be interpreted by a judge, not by a lawmaker.
“SB 124 is much more than a restatement of the constitutional home rule powers,” said the group’s executive director, Mindy Seger. “Let the courts decide.”
Setzler also introduced Senate Bill 236 to redraw Cobb County’s lines back to those in the Legislature-approved map from last year; that bill is expected to be heard by the committee Tuesday afternoon.
