State senators did not vote on bills to reinstate Cobb County’s electoral map and prevent counties from amending their own district maps in the future, leaving the redistricting dispute to the courts to settle after a key legislative deadline elapsed.
The bills were an attempt by state Sen. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) to reaffirm the General Assembly’s redistricting power after the Cobb Commission’s unprecedented move last year to overrule the state and amend its own election lines.
Under a legislative deadline, bills must have been approved by one chamber of the Legislature by Crossover Day on Monday to go forward. Because Senate Bills 124 and 236 did not go up for a vote, they cannot be passed this session. However, defeated proposals can resurface as amendments to other bills.
SB 124 sought to “restate constitutional limitations” that counties do not have the power to amend their own maps under the Home Rule provision of the state constitution. Cobb County did so in October in rebuke of Republican state lawmakers who passed a map drawing Commissioner Jerica Richardson, a Democrat, out of her district halfway through her elected term.
Home rule does give counties the power to change local laws, but it does not explicitly include redistricting. County officials have said a judge will need to interpret whether the constitution allows home rule powers to be used for drawing district lines.
An amendment to the bill would have allowed elected officials to continue serving their terms even if they are drawn out of their districts, a change Richardson has said she would welcome.
The other bill, SB 236, would have reinstated Cobb’s electoral map as passed by the state last year. Both bills worked in tandem to void the commission’s move and prevent it from doing the same thing again in the future.
Setzler, an outspoken critic of the Cobb Commission amending its own map, has said he brought the bills in an attempt to resolve the redistricting dispute in the Legislature. While both bills did advance out of committee, they did not make it to a floor vote.
Now the decision is left to the courts to interpret the Georgia Constitution’s home rule powers. Legal experts and officials disagree on whether home rule applies to redistricting, with former Gov. Roy Barnes arguing the intent was to give counties the power, and the state Attorney General arguing the county’s amendment is “not legally binding.”
Republican Commissioner Keli Gambrill, along with a Cobb resident, brought a lawsuit this month in Cobb County Superior Court challenging the legality of the county’s map. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.
About the Author
