Group Files Suit to Dissolve Dunwoody’s Charter Based on Voting Rights Act

The Georgia Black Legislative Caucus wants to dissolve five cities – including Dunwoody – that it says were formed in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The caucus is suing Gov. Nathan Deal in federal court over claims that forming new cities that include Dunwoody and Sandy Springs was a violation of minority voting rights.

The caucus seeks to dissolve the charters of Milton, Johns Creek, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Chattahoochee Hills, as it claims each was formed in violation of the Voting Rights Act and state legislative procedure. The caucus wants a preemptive strike against the formation of Milton County as well.

"By their creation, voting strength of African Americans within these cities has been diluted beyond the maximum Constitutional level and grossly in excess of the more restrictive provisions of the VRA. This has effectively taken the right to vote away from these African Americans," the caucus said in a Web site devoted to this case, Action in Justice for Georgia.

Dunwoody City Attorney Brian Anderson said the move for cityhood was looked at by the U.S. Department of Justice, as required under the Voting Rights Act.

“Dunwoody and all the other cities had to get preclearance from the Department of Justice in regards to the Voters Rights Act,” he said. “All cities were precleared. Therefore we don’t see how this suit has any basis, any merit.”

The cities are not named as parties in the suit. Anderson said the city is trying to figure out if and how it will respond.

“There really isn’t much of a case to be made for dilution of minority rights based on the demographics we have,” he said. “There has been no change to the votes for the county commissioners, no change in those district lines with the formation of Dunwoody.”

The only issue with the formation of Dunwoody was the city itself and its borders, Anderson said.

“The Department of Justice looked at that in detail and didn’t see any impact in reducing minority rights,” he said.

But one of the attorneys who filed the suit, Rodney Strong, said the pre-clearance from the Justice Department may have been tainted politically.

While the changes were pre-cleared in each case, Strong says it has been documented that under the Bush administration many clearances regarding voting rights were made by political appointees rather than people who’ve spent their careers with that branch (he pointed to investigations in the Washington Post such).

“I would add that there were a number of allegations regarding undue political influence over the supposedly independent decisions about voting rights,” he said. “I think it makes sense that we bring this suit and we look into the decisions that were made.”

The caucus in its release said the state violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, as well as sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"The state committed these violations by creating super-majority white neighborhoods and communities within previously existing local government bodies (counties), in which, African-Americans have historically maintained dominant political control," the group's release said.

Sandy Springs State Rep. Wendall Willard says he does not see any basis for the lawsuit.

“It’s surprising that they’ve sued the state. They haven’t sued the cities,” said Willard, who is also attorney for the City of Sandy Springs. “They claim a dilution of voting power, but in fact there hasn’t been any dilution. The people who live in these cities still have the ability to vote, as they have in presidential elections, state elections, county elections - now we’ve added for them the benefit of voting in a local election.”

Jim Paine, a member of the Milton County Initiatives Committee, agreed. agreed, pointing to one quote in the Black Legislative Caucus news release describes what people in North Fulton are doing: "The right to vote is the right to control everything from taxes to government services."

"That sentence right there is exactly what we in North Fulton County are looking for. It's the ability to govern our own local area and we're looking for no more and no less than that," he said.

"That's all we are asking to do, control our own destiny and government services," Paine said.