Due to the influx of the film industry, Georgia has famously become the Hollywood of the South. But has the Peach State also quietly imported California’s love for direct democracy?
Perhaps not directly. But the Georgia Supreme Court’s Feb. 7 ruling in Camden County v. Sweatt may have opened the door for Georgia to emulate the West Coast by launching citizen-driven referendums and recalls that could enable voters to shape public policy at the ballot box themselves.
The Camden ruling sided with residents who voted in a referendum to block county officials from building a spaceport. In his concurring opinion, Supreme Court Justice Charlie Bethel suggested that via the state’s “Home Rule” law, which was at issue, “Georgia appears to have chosen to allow for petition and referendum challenges to virtually every decision of local governments. This would constitute a giant leap toward what nears a direct democracy model for local government.”
But Bethel warned that “our holding here will, I expect, usher in a frightful season for local governments in Georgia.”
Does the Stop Cop City movement’s current attempt to use a citizen referendum to repeal an Atlanta City Council ordinance authorizing a $90 million police and firefighter training center mean that “frightful” season is here?
Georgia Supreme Court’s about-face
Direct democracy, where a majority of voters decide on policies rather than elected representatives, is a political artifact of the Progressive Era. It’s a prominent lawmaking feature in the American West, especially in California, where the citizenry’s ability to put initiatives, referendums, and recall elections on the ballot was added to the state constitution in 1911. Direct democracy was part of Gov. Hiram Johnson’s strategy to break the Southern Pacific Railroad monopoly on California’s economy and government.
America’s Southern states…
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