Macon lawmaker wants more nonpartisan local elections

A Republican Macon lawmaker wants to change Georgia’s voting law because of something that happened in the last Macon-Bibb election:

He voted for a Democrat.

“This past election cycle, I didn’t even get to vote for myself in the Republican primary,” state Rep. Allen Peake said. That’s because a couple of key county races were going to get decided in the Democratic primary, and he wanted to vote in them instead of his own shoo-in primary.

“If I wanted to have a say-so in who was going to be the next … sheriff and tax commissioner, … then I needed to vote in the Democratic primary. And that’s crazy,” Peake said.

So he’s filing a bill in the state Legislature that could give each county’s group of lawmakers the right to erase the “D” or “R” behind the names of candidates for tax commissioner, sheriff, district attorney, coroner, and Superior Court clerk.

For a Republican would-be coroner or tax commissioner, Macon-Bibb County looks like a tough place to win office. As a whole, the county tends to vote blue, according to the last couple of years of election results.

Conversely, in red-voting Houston County, it can be hard for Democrats. The races that Peake’s bill addresses were all Republican walkovers last year.

So Peake sees a problem: voters who don’t get a say in a particular local race because the party they prefer doesn’t run a candidate.

But state Sen. David Lucas is against the idea of taking away party labels in a place that’s solidly blue.

“So now Mr. Peake wants to do what he’s always done and that is to try and destroy the Democratic Party,” Lucas said.

Lucas sees party labels as useful shorthand for a candidate’s beliefs.

“If you’re a Democrat you’re a Democrat. I’d like to know what your stance is before I vote for you. Now you’re telling me, ‘I don’t have to tell you anything’ because it’s nonpartisan,” he said.

Nonpartisan elections for county or consolidated government offices would be held during the general primary, as Georgia law is written now, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. In 2016, that was on May 24.

Peake himself knows he doesn’t have full support among Republican lawmakers, especially those from deep red counties north of Interstate 20.

Democrats tend to find mountain voters hard to win over. The Republican lawmakers who represent those counties may not see a pressing problem with that.

This story was originally published January 9, 2017 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Macon lawmaker wants more nonpartisan local elections."