Legislation that would outline the process the city of Atlanta must go through to verify a citizen-led petition for a ballot referendum was held in committee on Monday.
Members of the Committee on Council voted to hold the proposal after lengthy legal debate and a last-minute substitute was emailed to council members.
Council member Liliana Bakhtiari introduced the legislation that would establish set procedures under the Municipal Clerk’s office on how such petitions are accepted, reviewed and validated.
The referendum process outlined in state code is unclear about the steps a municipality must take to review submitted citizen-led referendum petitions. It outlines the number of signers required to get the issue on the ballot and the timeline for signature collection and verification.
But it leaves out crucial details, including to what lengths reviewers should go to validate names, and it does not explain whether there is an opportunity for a curing process for questionable signers.
Bakhtiari’s legislation aims to fill those gaps that have created confusion during Atlanta’s first-ever petition drive over the city’s controversial public safety training center.
But lawmakers held off on moving the paper to a full council vote after city attorneys pointed to aspects of the measure that may contradict state law. Others voiced concern that Republican lawmakers — currently gathered for the legislative session under the Gold Dome — may retaliate and crack down on the referendum process.
“There are the concerns about what the state can hold against us and hold us accountable to,” said Bakhtiari. “I am not in the practice of bending to the state when it comes to sacrificing the voices of my constituency.”
The committee voted to hold the legislation unanimously.
Shortly before the meeting, a mysterious substitute piece of legislation was emailed to council members that replaced most of the bill in question and added provisions like using voter registration cards to match questionable signatures — a city method that has raised eyebrows of some top Georgia Democrats.
Council members are split on the best way the body should codify the petition process, if at all. Controversy has swirled around the petition effort to put the city’s public safety training facility in front of voters as the first-of-its-kind referendum has remained in both the local and national spotlight.
“I have some unreadiness about what would have been the substitute and I have some unreadiness about the paper in front of us now,” said Council member Byron Amos. “It’s been disheartening that we simply have not been able to get in a room, figure out how to move this city forward.”
The public safety training center referendum effort is currently in limbo as the city and organizers await a decision from the 11th District Court of Appeals, which is reviewing a legal case against the petition requirements outlined in state code.
Dozens of opponents of the training center amassed at City Hall on Monday to speak in favor of the legislation that was tabled just ahead of the full council meeting. They pressed Atlanta’s elected officials to take action to solidify the petition process so organizers aren’t caught off guard by decisions made in real time during verification.
“Far and wide, whether for it or against it, people wanted the option to vote,” said Lisa Magee, a canvasser for the petition drive. “We submitted those signatures and it’s past time to count them.”
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