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The above map features the county’s newly redrawn district lines, approved Feb. 14 by the Hart County Board of Commissioners. The map can also be found in color and online at hartcountyga.gov.
The Hart County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Feb. 14 to approve a new map that will modify the boundaries of the county’s five districts. Chairman Marshall Sayer and commissioner Joey Dorsey also rebuked claims of racism being involved in the map’s redrawing.
The Georgia General Assembly issued a statewide deadline of March 6 to all counties to approve the electoral redistricting lines drawn up by the Georgia Reapportionment Office.
Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries, which occurs after each decennial (10 year) census. According to the 2020 Federal Census, there were 25,828 people, 9,853 households, and 6,743 families residing in Hart County. The census data revealed that Districts 5 and 2 have grown in population size, while District 1 has contracted.
District 1 is recognized as Hart County’s majority-minority district, which was granted through a court order from a lawsuit filed by the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the 1980s. The lawsuit argued that Hart County violated Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which forbids electoral lines from being drawn in such a manner that it “improperly dilutes minorities’ voting power.”
District 1 is represented by Michael Bennett through the board of commissioners and by Lonnie Robinson through the board of education. According to Bennett, Robinson wanted “better information” about the new electoral map prior to the board of commissioners motioning to take action on it at their Jan. 24 meeting.
Robinson had proposed a second electoral map for the board of education, which is permitted under Georgia law through Georgia General Assembly OCGA 28-1-14. The law allows local boards of education and other local governments to participate in the process of drawing proposed representative districts for consideration by the Georgia General Assembly. However, Hart County’s state representative Alan Powell refused to adopt two redistricting maps and said that he would “only introduce one map to the legislature for approval.”
“The second map was confusing, and I mentioned this to [Robinson] back in [Sep. 2022], and he didn’t rebuttal it then,” Bennett said. “[Robinson] said that he felt like I should have discussed it with him further, but that was pretty much the end of the conversation. There wasn’t any controversy as far as I’m concerned.”
The Hartwell Sun called Robinson five times: three times on Feb. 20 and twice on Feb. 21 for additional comments, but had yet to receive a reply as of press time.
Sayer stated at the board of commissioners’ meeting that the electoral lines being redrawn was “not about race” or “about elections.” The board received the map from the Georgia Reappointment Office in Feb. 2022, but did not motion to approve it due to districts 2 and 4 undergoing an election cycle.
“[The board of commissioners] held off until this year so we could get this done before our election next year,” Sayer said. “This is all about putting the equal number of people in each district, and this map does that the best. This redistricting map is not about elections, it’s not about any race; it’s all about the numbers in a district.
“Is the [map] perfect, no; but I think we could find problems if we do 15 more maps. We’ll always find a problem, but this is the [map] the [Georgia Reapportionment Office] sent us and that’s the one that we’ll be voting on tonight.”
Commissioner Dorsey said that the new map met all the [legal] requirements by state and federal law and emphasized that it was not the board of commissioners who drafted the map, but state officials affiliated through the Georgia Reapportionment Office.
“It wasn’t done by any outside influence, and I don’t see what the problem is, but apparently there’s a problem,” Dorsey said. “There were phone calls made to members of the board of commissioners by the board of education today that said that they had a problem. There wasn’t a problem with this map last year or three weeks ago, but now all of a sudden there’s a problem.”
Two days later on Feb. 16, the Hart County Board of Education had a called meeting that dealt with the redistricting and approved the first map with a 4-1 vote. Robinson was the only dissenting vote.
“The map just came along with [the called meeting] since the board of commissioners voted to approve it the night prior,” said District 4 Board of Education member Richard Sutherland. “We had not dealt with the map yet, and we knew that the deadline with the legislature was approaching, so we had to put the map on Thursday’s called meeting. We just decided to go with what we felt was right.”
In other business:
• The board approved a county marshal’s office to enforce Hart County’s codes and ordinances.
• The board approved the Hart County 2022 comprehensive plan.
• The board approved lawn cutting bids to be turned over to the county administrator.
• The board approved to abandon Thornton Baker Road.
• The board approved to have additional evidence and administrative storage units built for the Hart County Sheriff’s Department.
• The board approved the purchase of a Bobcat (heavy machine) through SPLOST.
• The board approved to amend the public transit job description.
• The board approved to write a letter of opposition against Georgia House Rule 189 that would increase weight limits for trucks.