By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | Getting national attention last week was the story of minorities in Gwinnett bringing suit against the county for alleged voting irregularities in drawing boundaries for county commission and school board seats.
Time the story was out, the Los Angeles Times Reporter Jenny Jarvie delved back into the story. She may have hit the nail on the head when she talked to Brian Whiteside. He is a black Gwinnett attorney who may have one of the best positions to speak to this subject. You see, he has run for office, and lost, in Gwinnett on two occasions, once in 2004 for sheriff, and again in 2012 for clerk of court. Ms. Jarvie quotes Whiteside in saying that the blame for the county not having many minority officials “rests with activists for not doing enough to register minority voters and get them out on election days to cast ballots.”
Mr. Whiteside continues: “Instead of trying to blame the county and the commissioners, they need to spend the money on viable candidates. Minorities in Gwinnett County out-populate all the whites. White people come out and vote. Minorities don’t come out and vote.”
There’s another more unusual question: why did the suit come against the County Commission and the School Board, when they don’t determine the district lines? The responsibility for determining district lines is from members of the Gwinnett legislative delegation. Why was the delegation not sued?
It’s difficult to think that Gwinnett legislative officials deliberately manipulated the district lines to make sure that minorities were limited from having seats on the two county-wide boards. We feel the delegation was totally committed to making sure the districts were as close to equal in total number of voters than they were thinking about what the white/minority proportion of voters might be in any district. Remember, too, that the district lines were also approved by the Justice Department.
We couldn’t agree more with Mr. Whiteside in another manner. Gwinnett has been heavily Republican since 1984, when the GOP candidates swept every Democrat with opposition out of office. Since then, Democrats have had a hard time fielding smart, qualified and potentially-winning candidates.
The political field is changing, but the change is slow. We may see one or two more Democratic (and minority) victories this year, perhaps in legislative races. We will know in a few weeks if these candidates are attractive enough to defeat incumbent Republicans.
However, it may be in legislative races that there will be significant changes in the make-up of minority victories, and less chance of seeing a victory for minorities in the county commission races. There are no opposed school board candidates.
However, in athletic competitions and elections, you can never tell who might unexpectedly win. Those of us here in 1984 certainly didn’t expect the GOP to sweep the field that year. Some year we may be just as surprised as 1984 when the Democrats in Gwinnett score significant gains.
In all likelihood, we’ll know these 2016 elections results well before there is significant action in the suit against the county for the boundaries of the two local boards.
We commend the activists in the suit against the county for trying something different. We don’t think that their suit has merit because of any direct action on the part of local officials.
EDITOR’S NOTE: First come, first saved: Though our Gwinnett history book, Gwinnett: A Little Above Atlanta, has sold out its second printing, a call to us last week uncovered seven copies of the 850-page history book. Three were sold to people who had asked for the book, so there are four crisp new copies remaining.
Call and we’ll reserve a book for you, and you can pick it up later. The original price remains: $40 plus $2.40 sales tax for Governor Deal.—eeb
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