IN CATOOSA, THE PEOPLE WILL DECIDE

Four Catoosa County Republicans, three of whom are incumbent county representatives, will remain on the ballot for the May 21 primary election, a federal judge has ruled.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Although Judge William M. Ray III, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, allowed the four to stay on the ballot because it was “too close to the election” and could lead to possible confusion and disenfranchisement of voters, he did not rule on whether the Catoosa County Republican Party had the right to boot them from the ballot, based on the First Amendment right to free association.

The county party originally had said Larry Black, chair of the County Commission; Vanita Hullander, the District 3 commissioner; Jeff Long, the District 1 representative; and Steven Henry, a former chair of the commission and a candidate for the same position, could not be on the primary ballot because they weren’t true Republicans. They, arguing they had been elected as Republicans, sued to reverse that determination.

A Superior Court judge, in turn, ordered the county’s elections director to put the names on the ballots. The county party and chair Joanna Hildreth then sued the county elections director and elections board in federal court. That, in turn, led to Ray’s ruling.

The federal judge also said questions the county party wanted on the ballot, two of which dealt directly with the controversy of the potential removal of the four candidates, could not be on the ballot because — again — the court didn’t have enough time to consider the issue. The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office had previously rejected the questions.

But no timeline was given as to when Ray, once a Georgia state senator, a Superior Court judge and a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals, might rule on the constitutionality of what the Catoosa County GOP had in mind.

The county party has been backed in its quest to keep the four names off the ballot by the Georgia Republican Assembly, which is not to be confused with the Georgia Republican Party or the Georgia General Assembly.

On its website, the Georgia Republican Assembly terms itself “a fully Republican organization that believes many of those people who call themselves ‘Republicans’ do not actually stand by, believe, or advocate Republican principles or values that Republican voters believe they are getting when they vote Republican. Our goal is to get actual Republicans, those people who, at a minimum, support basic, common sense principles that help society, elected into public office and into party office, and to hold them accountable once there.”

The organization, which appears to believe the state party didn’t adhere enough to Trump in his claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, is slated to have its 2024 endorsement convention for statewide, local and congressional races on Saturday in Fayetteville, Georgia. We assume none of the four will be endorsed.

“We continue to fight on and look forward to seeing how [Ray] does ultimately decide on the merits of the case,” Nathaniel Darnell, president of the Georgia Republican Assembly, said in a phone call with Times Free Press reporter Andrew Wilkins.

What will be intriguing is if one or more of the spurned four candidates win on May 21 and then Ray rules in favor of the county party’s ability to keep candidates of their choosing off the ballot. Would they be kicked out of their positions? Would there be a new election? Would the next closest vote-getter be elevated? Would the ruling entice more county parties across the state to take candidate selection into their own hands?

We have said from the outset that the county party had no business making such a subjective decision about potential Republican candidates and that the people with their votes ought to be the decision-makers. Officeholders of all stripes often make the decisions they do in office based on what they believe is best for the majority of their constituents and with the best information they have at the time. Such decisions may not always adhere to the line or even the spirit of the party they represent, but they are the best decisions they know how to make.

On May 21, Catoosa County Republican voters will have their say. Some will vote to keep the four out of office because their county party said they shouldn’t be there. Some will vote them in because they believe the county party was being too big for its britches in saying who should be on the ballot. But we hope the majority of voters will mark their ballots for the candidates in the Republican or Democratic primaries they believe will be best for all of Catoosa County. That’s the way it ought to be.

Then we’ll all wait to see what comes next.