With qualifying coming up fast, two sheriffs’ races in metro Atlanta are shaping up in ways voters may not have come to expect.
Instead of running on their records for law and order, incumbent Forsyth County sheriff Ted Paxton and former Clayton County sheriff Victor Hill are trying to outrun recent events.
In the case of Paxton, it’s a January 911 call, in which Forsyth deputies and firefighters discovered the married sheriff unconscious in the doorway at the home of a female friend who told authorities the sheriff had been drinking.
In the case of Hill, it’s an indictment last January charging him with 37 counts of corruption, mostly from his first term as sheriff before he was defeated in re-election in 2008 by incumbent Sheriff Kem Kimbrough.
Paxton denies being drunk. Hill said he’s not guilty of corruption.
Such public revelations aren’t shocking in modern politics. But the revelations are unseemly in sheriff’s races, said Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, president elect of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association. The public, he said, has come to expect more of sheriffs.
“You’re the one who has the ability to take away a citizen’s freedom,” Sills said. “You deal with the public more directly than other politicians, so you’re expected to behave better.”
There are sheriff elections in all 159 counties this year and contested races across metro Atlanta. Filings with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission show six candidates intend to run for sheriff in Hall County, five in Fulton and two in Cobb.
Only the incumbents have filed in Dekalb and Gwinnett. Nine people plan to run in Clayton where Hill is seeking a comeback.
The charges against Hill, some as recent as last summer, include theft, racketeering, influencing a witness and violating the oath of office. Hill said last week the investigation and indictment were orchestrated by Kimbrough after he found out Hill planned to run against him.
“The only thing I’m guilty of is running for sheriff,” Hill said last week. “I’m not guilty of a single one of these charges.”
Kimbrough says there was nothing political about the investigation or indictment.
“A grand jury has heard the evidence, and this is what they decided. It’s as simple as that,” Kimbrough said.
In Forsyth, Paxton, seeking his fourth term, doesn’t deny he fainted at his friend’s house in January, but insists his condition was the result of a blood-sugar imbalance. That explanation has arched a few eyebrows of online bloggers who’ve listened to the 911 call and read the fire department report in which Paxton told attendants “Go ahead and tell all the papers your sheriff is drunk.”
Paxton later admitted to having a sip of alcohol.
“The bottom line is I simply got sick,” Paxton said. “Then, it gets exploited into a situation that it was not. We’ve now risen to the level that as a public official I have to be held accountable for becoming sick.”
Paxton says he’s offended by the rumors about his private life and that he has been legally separated from his wife for several years.
“I am a human being,” Paxton said. “I have flaws. Relationships do suffer.”
Beyond the rumored maelstrom of his personal life, Paxton’s opponents criticize him for presiding over a $37 million budget that has tripled since he took office and while the county’s population has less than doubled.
But the sheriff insists new accounting practices, instituted by the county several years ago, have swollen the budget by charging health insurance, pension contributions, tech services and automotive work to his department.
Paxton’s challengers campaign for more openness in the budgeting process and insist taxpayer money should be spent with more accountability.
But they, too, have issues to overcome.
Duane Piper, a 25-year law enforcement veteran who spent 16 years with the sheriff’s department, was cited in Dawson County earlier this year for driving 103 mph in a 65 mph zone.
Piper said he was surprised by his speed, but he paid the fine.
“There’s a penalty for exceeding the speed limit in Georgia,” he said. “I obviously exceeded the speed limit, so I paid the penalty.”
Forsyth’s third sheriff’s candidate, Lauren McDonald, has no law enforcement experience but has served as county coroner for 11 years and as a part-time firefighter for 24 years.
McDonald, who operates McDonald and Son Funeral Home in Cumming, got into hot water this spring when allegations circulated that he was in violation of the county’s ethics ordinance by receiving pay for his part-time job as a firefighter while holding office as the county coroner.
The coroner immediately sought a ruling from County Attorney Ken Jarrard, who assured him that his firefighter pay did not present an ethical violation.
“I’m not going to let something like that affect my business, the citizens of the county, the fire department that I love ... and of course my name,” McDonald said.
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