The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cobb candidate challenges disqualification ruling
Elections board says Adams doesn’t live in disputed District 2.
An aspiring candidate for Cobb County’s District 2 commission seat has appealed her disqualification to Cobb Superior Court in a new legal filing Friday afternoon.
Alicia Adams qualified to run for office through the Cobb County Republican Party even though she doesn’t live in District 2 under the current county district map. Commissioners must live in the district they represent. Resident Mindy Seger challenged the qualification and the Board of Elections disqualified Adams’ candidacy in a hearing March 15.
The county’s district map has been in dispute for nearly two years, since the County Commission passed its own version of the map after the state Legislature adopted a map that drew Commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her district mid-term. A Superior Court judge ruled in January that the map passed by the commission is unconstitutional, but the county has appealed that ruling to the Georgia Supreme Court, which has set oral arguments for April.
In the meantime, the county’s elections board used the county’s version of the map for qualifying in the May primary election.
Adams would qualify to run for the commission seat under the state map, but not with the county map.
In the court filing, Adams and her attorneys Chuck Boring and the firm Robbins Alloy Belinfante Littlefield asked the judge to overturn her disqualification, prevent the election from moving forward until the map dispute has been resolved, and require that the Board of Elections use the map enacted by the state Legislature for the upcoming commission elections. The filings also request an expedited review of the case.
Boring argues that the elections board violated Adams’ right to run for elected office and her right to vote by using the commission district map that has already been ruled unconstitutional.
“Defendants are improperly conducting the elections for Cobb County Board of Commissioners, Posts 2 and 4 by refusing to use the General Assembly map and district boundaries,” the filing says.
Elections board attorney Daniel White declined to comment until he has a chance to fully review the filings.
County officials argue the home rule provision of the Georgia Constitution gives them the authority to overrule the state on certain matters, including the district lines. That has created a unique constitutional question — and chaos during qualifying. The county argues that its map should be used until the Supreme Court rules on the matter.
In the hearing before the Board of Elections, Boring argued the opposite, saying the county’s appeal does not delay the lower court’s judgment. The elections board didn’t agree.
“My client, Ms. Adams, has qualified under what has been ruled by the Superior Court — what the secretary of state has opined, what the attorney general has opined — to be the lawful, constitutional map that applies to the County Commission race,” Boring said.
Cobb County GOP Chair Salleigh Grubbs said she qualified Adams so that the party would have a candidate just in case the Supreme Court reinstates the state-approved map in the middle of the election.
“I know Alicia would not qualify under the (county’s) map,” Grubbs said. “I follow the law. The law says the legislative map is the map. Judge Harris says the legislative map is the map.”
It is unclear how the high court’s decision will impact the 2024 elections, particularly if it decides the legislative map should be used. Candidates have already qualified under the county’s map, and the May primary is set to take place mere weeks after oral arguments.
Another lawsuit filed against the county by Larry Savage, a perennial GOP candidate for the Cobb Commission chair seat, asks the court to issue an emergency ruling on which map is in effect.
The court has not yet weighed in on his complaint.
On the steps of City Hall on Friday, proponents of the long-standing plan to install a light rail system along Atlanta’s Beltline called on Mayor Andre Dickens to publicly support the project — just days ahead of his annual State of the City remarks scheduled for Monday morning.
Matthew Rao, chair of the community group Beltline Rail Now, called back to Dickens’ election bid in which, Rao said, the soonto-be mayor consistently backed Beltline rail.
“We’re here today to talk about progress but also promises,” Rao said. “And we’re here to call on our mayor in his next two years in office, to continue that progress, to get louder about it, and to end any doubt that people may have about where he stands on Beltline rail.”
Debate on whether or not the city should stick to the plan of constructing mass transit along the iconic 22-mile trail loop has ramped up after Atlanta Beltline and MARTA officials said they are ready to begin the eastside streetcar extension.
The $230 million project would lengthen the streetcar from downtown to Ponce City Market and is funded by More MARTA money — funds approved by Atlanta voters in 2016 to go toward transit expansion.
It would be the first step in starting the process of constructing mass transit along the trail system. But opponents of the plan share concerns over the system’s noise and speed, cost to ride and ridership levels.
In response to that criticism, Beltline leadership told The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution during an editorial board meeting that the full project’s design is only 30% done, leaving time to engage with impacted communities.
Supporters on Friday said the heart of their message to the city is one word: equity.
Rail proponents say Atlanta’s current public transportation system still leaves gaps in access to jobs, housing and recreational opportunities for residents who live in more isolated neighborhoods.
“Equity without a commitment to ensuring that people have a path to upward mobility is no equity at all,” said Fred Smith, a law professor at Emory University.
Smith said it’s important for the city to stick with its decadesold plan of installing transit along the Beltline so that years into the future — as Atlanta’ population continues to grow — the city won’t still be using the public transportation system of today.
“We can do better,” Smith said. “We’re now the sixth largest metro in this country. We need to act like it.”
During an AJC editorial board meeting in February, Dickens agreed that he had supported the idea of transit along the Beltline in the past, but has a few questions before the entire project moves forward.
“I have always been supportive of some transit on the Beltline, but I’m also sober and aware enough to know that our 20-year vision from when Ryan Gravel and company came up with it, now 20 years later, we’ve got to look at how real is it?” he said.
Dickens said he tasked Beltline leadership to look into things like how much it would cost riders, how fast it will move and how many residents are expected to use it.
“If we find that that’s not viable, (there’s) no reason to build something that’s not going to be used,” Dickens told the AJC.
When asked for a comment on Friday’s rally, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office offered the short statement: “The mayor is excited by all the interest in transit.”
Better Atlanta Transit, an opposition group, has also upped pressure on elected officials to revisit the project.