The Georgia House of Representatives on Monday pulled two bills designed to reconfigure the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections and Registration from its local legislative Calendar and sent them to its Intragovernmental Coordination Committee for further consideration.
Rep. Houston Gaines, who represents one of Oconee County’s four precincts in the 120th House District and is the chief sponsor of the two bills, did not object when Beth Camp, chair of the Intragovernmental Coordination Committee, asked House Speaker Jon Burns to pull the two bills from the Local Calendar.
The House then passed with a vote of 165 to 0 the Calendar, a collection of bills designed to address local rather than statewide issues, and forwarded it to the Senate for consideration before the General Assembly ends its session on Friday.
At present, the Athens-Clarke County Mayor and Commission appoint three of the five members of the Board of Elections and Registration from applications submitted to them. The Democratic and Republican parties select the remaining two members.
The bills Gaines drafted and initially included in the Calendar for a vote on Monday assigned the Western Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judges the role of creating a restricted list from which the Mayor and Commission would pick the three nonpartisan members.
Gaines said on Monday that the current makeup of the ACC Election Board “is likely unconstitutional due to direct appointments by local political parties,” that the initial selection of members by the nonpartisan judge would “tone down the partisanship,” and that the Election Board has made “several high profile costly mistakes” in recent years.
Gaines said on Monday after the session that he intends to “revisit” the legislation in next year’s session.
The Oconee County Board of Elections and Registration also consists of five members, one selected by each of the parties, and three chosen by the Board of Commissioners from applications made to the Board. The legislation drafted by Gaines addressed only the Election Board in Athens-Clarke County.
Monday Action
Gaines was joined in sponsoring House Bill 851 and House Bill 852 by Marcus Wiedower, who represents the remaining three Oconee County precincts, and Trey Rhodes.
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| Screen Shot Speaker Burns Recognizes Camp |
All three are Republicans whose Districts, 120, 121, and 124 respectively, also include parts of Athens-Clarke County.
Spencer Frye, whose 122nd District is entirely in Athens-Clarke County, did not join in sponsoring the two bills. Frye is a Democrat.
Gaines, Wiedower, and Rhodes introduced the two bills on March 25.
They were given first read on March 25 and second read on March 27, moving from there to the Local Calendar, which amounts to a consent agenda of all local legislation.
On Monday (March 31) morning, when Speaker Burns said the Local Calendar was before the House, Rep. Camp from Pike County rose and asked to be recognized.
Camp then made a motion to remove HB 581 and HB 582 from the Local Calendar “and recommit it to Intragovernmental Coordination Committee.”
Burns asked for objections, and said “hearing none it is so ordered.”
HB 851 And HB 852
House Bill 851 would have abolished the existing Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections and Registration, and House Bill 852 would have created a new one.
One member of the new Board was to be appointed by “the governing authority of Athens-Clarke County from nominations made by the county executive committee of the political party whose candidates at the last preceding general election held for the election of all members of the General Assembly received the largest number of votes in Athens-Clarke County for members of the General Assembly.”
Another member was to be from the political party whose candidates “received the second largest number of such votes.”
The legislation states that “three members shall be appointed by the governing authority of Athens-Clarke County from lists of nominees compiled by each judge of the judicial circuit which includes Athens-Clarke County.”
“Each such judge shall nominate two individuals to said governing authority, and a majority of such governing authority shall appoint board members nominated by such judges. Such members shall be appointed without regard to political affiliation.”
The legislation does not specify how those judges are to obtain the names of the two persons each is to nominate.
Nor does it specify which of the four judges in the Western Judicial Circuit Superior Court, Chief Judge Lisa Lott, Judge Eric Norris, Judge H. Patrick Haggard, and Judge Lawton Stephens, are to be involved in the nomination for three positions.
Origins Of Bills
Local legislation generally is drafted by members of the Georgia House in response to requests from local governments.
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| Official Photo Gaines |
In email message Gaines sent to me before the House vote on Monday morning in response to my email question about the origin of the bills, he provided a version of a response he had sent to others who had written him raising concerns about the bills.
“The current makeup of the Clarke County Board of Elections is likely unconstitutional due to direct appointments by local political parties to the Board,” he said.
“There was a recent Georgia Supreme Court ruling that said as such,” he continued. “Many counties across the state are having to pass legislation to address this issue. In our area, we recently did so in Jackson County.”
“The proposed new board makeup remains one Republican, one Democrat, and three members selected by the County Commission,” Gaines wrote. “The Republican and Democrat members would now be nominated to the Commission who would ultimately appoint those two members in order to address the legal issue of the current makeup previously mentioned.”
“The three ‘at-large’ appointments by the Commission would now come via nominations made by the Superior Court judges,” he said. “With four judges, there would be a total of eight nominations (two per judge)--the Commission would then choose three of those,” the response continued.
Athens-Clarke County Mayor Kelly Girtz told me in an email message on Monday afternoon that Gaines had “first mentioned” the proposed changes in the Board “last week.”
“This has not been mentioned as a need or interest in the past,” he said.
Gaines’s Rationale For Judicial Appointments
Gaines, in his email on Monday morning before the vote in the House, said by asking the Superior Court Judges to make the nominations “we are creating a degree of separation between elected officials picking those who run their elections.”
“We also help tone down the partisanship in these positions by having nonpartisan judges propose nominations,” he said. The Superior Court Judges run in nonpartisan races.
“In recent years, we’ve seen several high profile costly mistakes made by the Board of Elections,” Gaines continued, “including placing voters in the wrong Commission district, sending out duplicate absentee ballots to hundreds of voters, and being fined $41,000 by the Secretary of State for illegally changing election equipment.”
Athens-Clarke County is seeking a replacement for long-time Director of Elections and Registration Charlotte Sosebee, and Gaines said this “is a good time to address these issues with the Board and to address the potential unconstitutionality of the current makeup.”
“This should not be partisan or controversial,” Gaines wrote, “and those suggesting otherwise clearly would like to use the board for their partisan purposes.”
In an email message after the session on Monday, Gaines said “Due to a number of issues, we weren’t able to get the bill over the finish line this late in Session.”
“We will be having a discussion this fall on how to address the legal and policy issues with the current makeup of the Board--and plan to revisit the matter next Session,” he wrote.
Oconee County Local Legislation
The language in the Oconee County local legislation setting up its five-member Board of Elections and Registration is very similar to the language in the legislation setting up the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections and Registration.
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| Screen Shot Vote Tally Local Calendar |
Legislation passed in 1998 for Oconee County increased the size of the Board of Elections and Registration created by 1994 local legislation from three to five members.
In both the 1994 and 1998 laws, each of the two parties getting the most votes in the most recent gubernatorial election “appointed” a member of the Board of Elections and Registration.
The 1998 law states that the Board of Commissioners appoints the remaining three members.
Both the 1994 and 1998 laws stipulate that the Board of Commissioners selects the chair from the members it appoints to the Board of Elections and Registration.
The Athens-Clarke County enabling legislation of 1984, revised in 1993, and 2002, stipulates that the Board has five members, with two of them “appointed” by the two parties getting the most votes “for members of the General Assembly.”
Athens-Clarke County Mayor Girtz, in his email message on Monday, said that “If there are some norms sought generally for Boards of Elections, the General Assembly should have a comprehensive discussion of the matter, rather than seeking piecemeal changes in the dying days of the legislative session.”
Video
The screen shots above were taken from video of the Monday morning legislative session of the House, which is available at this location.
I did not watch the session live, but Oconee County resident Jeff Hood did and kindly informed me of the vote on the Local Calendar.
I subsequently watched that part of the session where the Calendar was before the full House and based my reporting above on that video.
That discussion is at 49:08 in the video.
3 comments:
Another poorly written piece of legislation from Gaines.
So in Gaines' view, it's unconstitutional for political parties to make direct appointments, but only if Dems are in charge.
I thought Gaines was interested in running for higher office. He shouldn't go out of his way to offend people in his home base, even if he wouldn't be their first choice.
Gaines ... said by asking the Superior Court Judges to make the nominations “we are creating a degree of separation between elected officials picking those who run their elections.”
“We also help tone down the partisanship in these positions by having nonpartisan judges propose nominations,” he said. The Superior Court Judges run in nonpartisan races.
This should also apply to the Oconee County BOE&R since they are set up the same way
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