Judge blocks attempt by Houston County elections board to dismiss lawsuit
Though the Houston County Board of Elections pushed to dismiss the lawsuit that accused them of diluting Black citizens’ voting strength, a Macon federal judge blocked the attempt on Tuesday.
The board and its chair, Pamela Morgan, attempted to discredit Courtney Driver and Mike Jones’ inclusion as two Black voters in a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Justice filed in January against the board over an alleged election method that favored white candidates and voters.
The board requested Judge Marc Treadwell to dismiss the action against them, but the judge ruled that Driver and Jones could remain in the lawsuit.
Driver and Jones joined the lawsuit on Jan. 25 after the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division froze when President Donald Trump started his term. The department had initially sued Houston County Commissioners Dan Perdue, Shane Gottwals, Gail Robinson, Tal Talton and Mark Byrd on Jan. 16.
After the DOJ pulled out of the lawsuit on March 17, the county commissioners were eventually dismissed from the lawsuit on April 7.
Morgan and the board, as well as Driver and Jones, however, remain in the lawsuit.
The DOJ had investigated the elections that took place in Houston County, in which they found that, despite Black-preferred candidates running for a seat at the Board of Commissioners and the county’s “sizeable and growing Black population,” the candidates have routinely lost, the DOJ said. They then filed the lawsuit.
The last time a Black commissioner was elected to the Board of Commissioners in Houston County was Houston Porter, who was elected in 1980 and was on the board until 1992. Though Black candidates ran for a seat on the board in the years that followed, they were all defeated, according to court records.
The DOJ at the time of the filing, and Driver and Jones, argued that the election method violates the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1983. Driver and Jones want Treadwell to declare that Houston County violated the Voting Rights Act and prohibit it from conducting future elections in the county unless they devise a new election system that would ensure sure Black voters can elect Black candidates onto the Board of Elections.
Morgan and the BOE claimed that Driver and Jones cannot enforce the Voting Rights Act, since they are considered “private individuals” in the suit, according to court records.
“The Attorney General abandoned the claim that the countywide method of voting in Houston County violates the VRA,” Morgan and the board say in court documents. “Plaintiff-Intervenors cannot continue that quest in the Attorney General’s stead because private parties have no ability to bring claims.”
And, though Morgan and the board argued that private individuals like Driver and Jones do not have the right to enforce the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, Treadwell ruled that the plaintiffs are entitled to sue.
“The defendants argue that Congress have intended the Attorney General to exercise sole enforcement authority because the ‘VRA alters the careful balancing of state and federal power in the context of elections’ ... but the defendants fail to offer any suggestion of incompatibility,” Treadwell said. “Enforcement by the Attorney General is thus, presumptively, a non-exclusive means to vindicate voting rights.”
Morgan and the BOE also argued that, because Driver and Jones didn’t specify whether “they live in an area of the County where a majority-Black district could be drawn or that such a district could be drawn in their portion of the county,” they didn’t provide information that should be addressed in the lawsuit, according to court records.
Treadwell disagreed, establishing that Driver and Jones have already shown that they are Black voters living in Houston County, which would allow them to establish their right as an aggrieved party to join the lawsuit, according to court records.
Because the judge denied the request for dismissal, the case moves forward, but no updates as to the case has been filed Tuesday.
