The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cobb cannot change its own electoral map, judge rules
Court affirms that redistricting is state Legislature’s right.
The Cobb County Board of Commissioners does not have the power to amend its own electoral map, as Democrats tried to do in 2022, Judge Ann Harris ruled on Monday.
The ruling comes amid a flurry of redistricting challenges affecting Cobb County in the last year but does not change the status quo: The General Assembly holds the power over county redistricting maps.
Plaintiffs David and Catherine Floam and Commissioner Keli Gambrill, who was later removed from the case, sued the County Commission in Cobb Superior Court arguing its move in 2022 to change its district map was unconstitutional, and the judge agreed.
Cobb County spokesman Ross Cavitt said the county has filed a notice to appeal the ruling.
During the last redistricting cycle in 2022, GOP state lawmakers bypassed the traditional process and pushed through a map that was not approved by a majority of the Cobb delegation.
That map strengthened Republican strongholds in the county while removing Commissioner Jerica Richardson, a Democrat, from her district halfway through her term.
To prevent Richardson from possibly being removed from office, the county used its home rule powers to override the state-approved map in favor of the mapproposed by Democratic state lawmakers that already hadthe approval of the state’s reapportionment office.
The county’s unprecedented legal gambit created a constitutional question that has now been answered through the courts: Redistricting powers lie with the state Legislature.
Cavitt said the county’s appeal of the ruling wi l allow chardson to continue serving until the appeal is heard.
The county has contended in the past that Richardson would be forced to vacate immediately because commissioners must live in the district they represent, but others have argued she would be able to finish out her term, which ends this year.
Richardson launched her campaign last year to run for U.S. Congress but has since backed away from challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Lucy Mcbath in the 6th District. With the recent changes to the state’s congressional map, Richardson has not said whether she will continue to run or in which district.
Richardson could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
County Attorney Elizabeth Monyak argued that Cobb County has the power to change its map under the home rule provision of the state Constitution. While the law does give counties the power to overrule the state Legislature in some circumstances, it does not apply to redistricting, the judge ruled.
The law says the home rule provision cannot be used in “actions affecting elective county office,” which the judge said applies to redistricting.
“Altering commission districts, and thus the citizens who can vote in that district and for that office, is a fundamental action affecting that elective office,” Harris wrote in the ruling.
The conflict has created no shortage of controversy in the county that only a few years ago was a staunch Republican stronghold. Democrats flipped countywide seats and won a majority on the Board of Commissioners in 2020.
The board’s Republicans, Gambrill and Joann Birrell, voted against the map several times and protested the county’s decision last January. At every commission meeting since the county began operating under its map that the judge has now deemed unlawful, Birrell and Gambrill have issued statements of opposition before voting on county business.
injury cases, contract litigation, family and domestic law and criminal defense.
A graduate of John Marshall law school, Wade served as an assistant solicitor for Cobb County in 1999. The solicitor general’s office handles misdemeanor cases. He became Marietta’s first Black male judge in 2011 when he was appointed to a post on the city’s municipal court, according to The Daily Report. Wade also made several unsuccessful runs for judgeships on the Cobb County Superior Court.
In 2020, Wade’s firm was retained by then-cobb Sheriff Neil Warren to review complaints of use of force, racial biases, discrimination and neglect at the county jail after seven detainees died in custody. Three months later, an Atlanta television station sued Warren, accusing him of manufacturing a fake investigation to circumvent open records laws. Wade defended his work. A judge later ordered the sheriff to release the records.
He’s been an informal adviser to Willis for years
Wade was assigned to mentor Willis after she was first elected as chief magistrate judge for the suburb of South Fulton in 2019. He served on Willis’ transition team as she prepared to take office as DA and sat in as Willis re-interviewed every employee in the office for their job. Wade was later tapped to lead the election probe.
Quiet in public, a key player behind the scenes
Wade led prosecutors’ presentation to the special grand jury that spent nearly eight months in 2022 collecting evidence and hearing witness testimony in the Trump case. Multiple special grand jurors previously interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-constitution gave Wade high marks for his work — and personal style. (He has a penchant for bold suits and ascots — he owns about 20.)
Over the course of the investigation, Wade has questioned witnesses, signed subpoenas and negotiated immunity deals. He also helped present the case to the grand jury that ultimately handed up the indictments against former President Donald Trump and 18 others in August.
In court, Wade has largely let his deputies take the lead during arguments before Judge Scott Mcafee, but when he does speak he comes off as soft-spoken. Defense attorneys, however, have complained about Wade’s hard-nosed tactics behind closed doors. (One lawyer representing more than a half-dozen Trump electors whom prosecutors had briefly tried to disqualify accused Wade of misleading and intimidating her clients after they accepted immunity deals.)
He’s one of the highest-paid prosecutors in Georgia
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office has paid Wade’s law offices nearly $654,000 since January 2022, according to county records, making it likely that he is the highest paid prosecutor in the state. (By comparison, Georgia Supreme Court justices currently earn slightly more than $186,000 per year.)
Wade is the Fulton DA’S office’s highest-paid contract attorney. His law partner, Christopher Campbell, has separately made $126,000 for his work with Fulton prosecutors, according to county records.
Efforts to punish Wade have so far failed
Mcafee in September quickly shut down an attempt to sanction Wade for a mailer his law firm sent multiple defendants offering them legal services. The “mailer appears to be the type of mass-generated material to which all citizens with a mailbox are regularly subjected,” the judge wrote in a September order.
A month later, several defendants sought to dismiss the indictment because the DA’S office failed to file in a timely manner two sworn oaths taken by Wade. Mcafee rejected their argument, stating the requirements don’t apply to contractors working on single cases and that the defendants didn’t establish a constitutional violation or structural defect to the grand jury process that warranted dismissing the case outright. Alluding to a famous Monty Python sketch, Mcafee added, “if this parrot of a motion is somehow not yet dead, the defendant has failed to establish how (Wade’s) actions resulted in prejudice.”