(The Center Square) – House Bill 369 by former state Rep. Dexter Sharper, D-Valdosta, regarding food trucks was amended in the Senate to create nonpartisan elections for five metro Atlanta counties.
The change from partisan to nonpartisan elections for counties with a medical examiner’s office was included in Senate Bill 573. The five counties are Fulton, Clayton, DeKalb, Cobb and Gwinnett. The Senate failed to pass the bill on crossover day.
The bill includes all county offices, but Democrats focused on the district attorneys in the five counties. All are Black women.
The Senate passed the amended House bill along party lines on Wednesday, over the objections of Democrats, who said it would be challenged in court.
“There’s nothing this chamber loves doing more than spending taxpayer money defending lawsuits,” McLaurin said. “When you treat people differently under the law, when you discriminate, kind of a harsh word, I think appropriate in this case, between counties, you’ve got to answer for that.”
Sen. Harold Jones II said if senators could say they were creating nonpartisan elections based on counties with a medical examiner’s office, they could make up metrics for anything.
“Can’t you find other DAs and make up metrics for them?” Jones said. “That is what the court is going to ask. And the answer is going to be, ‘Well, yeah, we could."”
Joe Mulholland, president of the Georgia District Attorney’s Association, told the Senate Ethics Commission on March 2 that the state’s district attorneys opposed the bill. Their opinion could change if the bill applied to all of the state’s district attorneys, he said.
Sen. Ed Seltzer, R-Acworth, said when presenting Senate Bill 573 on March 6 that the bill was about the complexity of the five counties, which make up 40% of Georgia’s population and more than half of the state’s gross domestic product.
“Because of the complexity and scale of that we believe that the best approach to this are nonpartisan elections,” Seltzer said.
Roswell Republican John Albers said Wednesday when presenting the amended House bill that it was about public safety and the debate was political.
“Much has been made and talked about our DAs today but you forgot all the other county elected officials that are there, too,” Albers said. “And the reason we’re doing this is because of that strong consolidated government in order to make it safer.”
The bill passed 32-21 along party lines. Because the bill was amended in the Senate, it goes back to the House for consideration.