For decades, the only way to get elected as the chief prosecutor in Athens, the liberal college town surrounding the University of Georgia, was to have a “D” by your name.
But that changed in November, when a local attorney who had never run for public office gathered more than 10,000 signatures to put him on the ballot as an independent, where he defeated a Democratic incumbent in a landslide victory.
The election of Kalki Yalamanchili in Georgia’s Western Judicial Circuit was an outlier, making him only one of two independent district attorneys out of 41 across the state.
But Yalamanchili’s campaign reflects a growing movement in Georgia to root out partisan labels in the criminal justice system. It’s been more than four decades since Georgia got rid of the party affiliations of superior court judges. And last month, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law doing the same thing for magistrate judges.
That law easily passed the state Legislature, and its primary Republican sponsor, state Rep. Kimberly New, said the next step would be to remove party labels from sheriffs and district attorneys. It’s an idea endorsed by Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, a veteran law enforcement officer who is influential in public safety issues.
“I think that’s the best way to serve the citizens is to be nonpartisan in those positions,” said New, a Republican from Villa Rica whose husband is a retired law enforcement officer.
But doing that would take a much bigger effort because it would upend the foundations that most local political organizations are built upon.
Sheriffs and district attorneys are the oldest elected offices in Georgia. The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office dates back to 1732. District attorneys can also trace their roots to the colonial period, making it the only local prosecutor position in the U.S. with origins in the English common law offices, according to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia Georgia.
Sheriffs have historically had immense political power within their communities. That influence has waned in recent decades, especially in more populated urban areas. But throughout much of rural Georgia, sheriffs are often still the first stop for state legislative candidates seeking endorsements.
Out of 159 sheriffs in Georgia, only nine are independent. Republicans hold 107 offices while Democrats have 43. Still, it’s been difficult for researchers to assess the impact of politics on sheriffs’ decision-making because, unlike other elected officials, they don’t have a voting record on legislation.
Academics have tried to get around this by focusing on the one hot button political issue sheriffs often face more than other offices: complying with federal immigration orders.
A 2019 study from Cambridge University looking at more than 3,200 partisan sheriff elections across the country and administrative data on their behavior found that Democrats and Republicans comply at nearly the same rate, “indicating that law enforcement officers make similar choices across party lines even when they have broad authority.”
Still, the politics of immigration have been changing quickly as President Donald Trump’s administration moves to deport massive numbers of immigrants who they say either entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas. That’s especially true in Georgia, where the 2024 killing of nursing student Laken Riley by an immigrant living in the country illegally prompted a new state law requiring sheriffs to work more closely with federal immigration authorities.
As of this summer, 24 Georgia sheriffs have applied for a federal program that would let them perform some functions of federal immigration agents. Of those, 21 are Republicans, two are Democrats and one is an independent. Most of metro Atlanta’s Democratic sheriffs, where the majority of Georgia’s immigrants live, have not applied.
In Georgia, prosecutorial politics have become especially fraught after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, indicted President Donald Trump and his allies for interfering with Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
Willis’ polarizing investigation is one reason getting rid of party affiliation in Georgia’s criminal justice system has become a partisan issue. While launching his campaign for attorney general in April, Republican state Sen. Bill Cowsert said Willis “and other partisan prosecutors have undermined public confidence in the fairness of our criminal justice system.”
But some Democrats have resisted, noting the push for nonpartisan offices comes while Democrats are winning more of these offices. Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, the former district attorney in Augusta, said party politics doesn’t play a role in doing the job — but it does offer a guide to voters.
“But what that party identification does, it does give people an opportunity to have an understanding of what your belief is in the broader criminal justice area,” the Democrat said. “To take that away or try to say that shouldn’t exist is wrong.”
While Yalamanchili proved independents can win in Georgia, he acknowledged his race benefited from “the right set of circumstances coming together.” The Democratic incumbent, Deborah Gonzalez, came under scrutiny following the high-profile murder of Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus. She was also criticized by many within her party for how she ran the office.
The only other independent district attorney in Georgia is Lewis Lamb, a career prosecutor in the Southwest Judicial Circuit, anchored in Macon, who was appointed to a vacant office in 2018 and has not faced any opposition since.
Yalamanchili said applying the law fairly and equally to everyone is not a partisan issue. He sees that as an opportunity to unite the community.
“A lot of times, when people are acting in that role as a juror or as a grand juror, it’s going to be the only time in their life that they act while exercising the authority of the state,” he said.
“That can really be an opportunity to build broad coalitions across communities that aren’t defined by differing partisan political belies that really don’t have a place in that process.”
AJC reporter Lautaro Grinspan contributed to this story.
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