School board members file suit to overturn state's ‘nepotism' provision

By Kristina Torres

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two local Georgia school board members have filed suit in federal court to overturn the state's new "nepotism" provision that restricts them from running for re-election.

Lawmakers passed the provision under unusual circumstances late on the last night of the 2009 legislative session. It bars someone from serving on a local school board if he or she has an immediate family member at work in the same school system as the local superintendent, principal, assistant principal or as a "system administrative staff" member. It went into effect on July 1 of last year -- soon enough to bar Kelvin Simmons, who had served on the Gainesville city school board since 1991, from running for re-election last November.

Simmons is one of the suit's plaintiffs. The other is Lamar Grizzle, an eight-year Bartow County board member who expects to be ineligible to qualify this year for re-election. Both men have immediate family members working in their respective systems. Simmons' wife is an assistant principal of a Gainesville school. Grizzle's daughter is a Bartow assistant principal.

"It's badly targeted [and] vaguely written," said their attorney, Peter R. Olson. Lawmakers last year originally included the provision in a controversial school governance bill inspired by the then-recent loss of accreditation by Clayton County schools. (Clayton County later regained its accreditation.) The governance bill, however, did not pass. But the nepotism provision on the session's last day made its way into another bill that did pass: the school choice bill HB 251, which originally related only to student transfers.

Simmons and Grizzle are asking that the court strike the provision from the law, saying in part that it supersedes voters' rights to elect their own local representation. They also argue that the Georgia Constitution prohibits a bill from having more than one subject matter. They filed their suit in U.S. District Court in Rome, Ga., last week.

Separately, state Rep. Tommy Benton (R-Jefferson) this year has sponsored legislation to essentially do the same thing: amend the law and remove the provision. Benton's bill, HB 924, is in committee.