A lawsuit seeks to delay Cobb County's upcoming July elections until the county commission districts are redrawn to reflect the county's population changes over the past 10 years.
Marietta resident and attorney Jonathan Crumly, Sr., filed the suit this week asking a federal court to redraw the districts or delay the election until it is done.
During the recently concluded legislative session, Cobb lawmakers did not pass a map for Cobb's four commission districts amid last-minute political maneuvering.
After each census, the political maps are updated to reflect changes in the population. Using the new population numbers, each district is required to have approximately the same number of people, ensuring the principle of one person, one vote. Cobb's four commission districts should include roughly 172,019 people, using the county's 2010 Census population of 688,078. But the disparity almost as much as 41,00 residents exists between the the highest and lowest populated districts, according to Crumly's lawsuit.
Cobb faced a similar situation with its district maps 10 years ago when its maps were challenged for diluting the minority vote and violating the one person, one vote principle.
The issue directly affects districts 2 in southeast Cobb and 4 in southwest Cobb that are up for election in July. Cobb is divided into four commission districts, with a chairman elected at-large. Crumly's suit claims that the current districts are so disproportionate in population that they violate the "one person, one vote" principle, and that using them in elections, including the July election, is unconstitutional.
"I’m a constitutional lawyer, and realized that we had a problem," said Crumly, who lives in Cobb's northwest district which saw population gains after the 2010 Census. "This affects all of Cobb County. One man, one vote is a hard-fought part of the critical process in America. Every vote should be counted and every vote should be counted equally."
Crumly is hoping that the matter can be quickly resolved with Cobb County and the courts so that the July district elections are not delayed. If that's not possible, Crumly plans to ask the court for a hearing date. At that time the court can make a decision or assign it to an expert to evaluate the voting districts.
Cobb's attorneys declined to comment.
For Cobb, the legal challenge means the county is responsible for legal fees, and if a court decision is delayed and pushes back the July commission elections, the county would also be responsible for funding a special election. (Cobb could still continue with its other July ballot items including Sunday alcohol sales). Countywide elections cost the county about $400,000; an election for two of the four districts would likely cost about half that amount. Cobb used in-house attorneys during the map challenge a decade ago, and paid about $11,000 in attorney's fees and expenses to the plaintiff's attorney, said county spokesman Robert Quigley.
"We knew it was coming to this," said Commissioner Woody Thompson, who represents district four in southwest Cobb and is up for reelection. Candidates Lisa Cupid and Connie Taylor have filed to challenge Thompson, and incumbent Commissioner Bob Ott is seeking reelection in district two. "I was in office 10 years ago when it was done the same way [through the courts]. I think [the court] will expedite it because I don't think anybody wants to have an extra election this year."
Usually the redistricting process happens under the radar, with state lawmakers from each county agreeing to a map and getting it passed as local legislation, without much input from lawmakers outside their jurisdictions. But this time around in Cobb, county and state officials haggled over about a dozen versions of district maps along the way, ultimately elevating the issue to a full chamber level.
Thompson, the Cobb commission's only Demcocrat complained that Republicans were trying to split his district with a map that would dilute his base to preserve a Republican powerhouse in southeast Cobb. His brother, a state senator, was able to stall those plans in the senate on the final night of the legislative session.
Without a legal challenge, the county could have moved forward with elections using the current district boundaries and allowed the legislature to work on an approved map when they reconvened in January, but doing so would still have left the county open to a lawsuit, said attorney Lee Parks, who has successfully represented governments and residents in similar cases, and represented people challenging Cobb's maps ten years ago.
Unlike Cobb, officials in Augusta-Richmond County took a more active approach and asked a federal judge to weigh in on its map before an outside legal challenge could be filed. Officials in that consolidated government, like Cobb, could not agree on a map.
With the pending lawsuit, "you'll probably end up with a less partisan map at the end of the day because the judge is looking at natural boundaries and communities of interest,” said Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Austell, who was one of the residents who signed onto the decade-old lawsuit before his time in the state legislature."At the legislature politics comes into play."
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