The Georgia Supreme Court agrees that someone needs to issue a legally final ruling on whether county commissioners can override state legislators and draw their own electoral districts.
But the nine justices on Thursday also agreed it would be improper to rule on that question in a lawsuit brought by two Cobb County residents, reversing a lower court judgment that had thrown out the county commissioners’ own map.
The ruling that Catherine and David Floam weren’t qualified to get a declaratory judgment means that, for now, residents in Georgia’s third-largest county will elect two county commissioners in districts mapped by the Democratic-majority Cobb County Commission and not under the earlier map drawn by the Republican-majority legislature. Voting is underway in advance of the May 21 primaries.
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