Finn v. Cobb Cnty. Bd. of Elections & Registration

682 F.Supp.3d 1331

Karen FINN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. COBB COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND REGISTRATION, et al., Defendants.

1:22-CV-02300-ELR

United States District Court, N.D. Georgia, Atlanta Division

Signed July 18, 2023

Bradley Erik Heard, Michael Joseph Tafelski, Southern Poverty Law Center, Miami, FL, Christopher Shenton, Jeffrey Loperfido, Pro Hac Vice, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Durham, NC, Douglas Koff, Jacqueline Maero-Blaskowski, Pro Hac Vice, Matthew Jason Sunday, Pro Hac Vice, Paul A. Schochet, Pro Hac Vice, Savannah Rose Price, Pro Hac Vice, Tara Lederer, Thomas Livingstone Mott, Pro Hac Vice, Schulte Roth & Zabel, LLP, New York, NY, Ezra D. Rosenberg, Jon M. Greenbaum, Pro Hac Vice, Julie Marie Houk, Pro Hac Vice, Sofia Fernandez Gold, Pro Hac Vice, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, Heather Jean Szilagyi, Pro Hac Vice, Washington, DC, Sabrina S. Khan, Pro Hac Vice, Southern Poverty Law Center, Washington, DC, Pichaya Poy Winichakul, Courtney Ann O'Donnell, Southern Poverty Law Center, Decatur, GA, Rahul Garabadu, Caitlin Felt May, Cory Isaacson, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiffs Karen Finn, Dr. Jullian Ford, Hylah Daly, Jenne Dulcio, Galeo Latino Community Development Fund, Inc., New Georgia Project Action Fund, Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, Inc.

Bradley Erik Heard, Michael Joseph Tafelski, Southern Poverty Law Center, Miami, FL, Caren E. Short, League of Women Voters of the United States, Washington, DC, Ezra D. Rosenberg, Jon M. Greenbaum, Pro Hac Vice, Julie Marie Houk, Pro Hac Vice, Sofia Fernandez Gold, Pro Hac Vice, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, Heather Jean Szilagyi, Pro Hac Vice, Washington, DC, Sabrina S. Khan, Pro Hac Vice, Southern Poverty Law Center, Washington, DC, Christopher Shenton, Jeffrey Loperfido, Pro Hac Vice, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Durham, NC, Douglas Koff, Jacqueline Maero-Blaskowski, Pro Hac Vice, Matthew Jason Sunday, Pro Hac Vice, Paul A. Schochet, Pro Hac Vice, Savannah Rose Price, Pro Hac Vice, Tara Lederer, Thomas Livingstone Mott, Pro Hac Vice, Schulte Roth & Zabel, LLP, New York, NY, Pichaya Poy Winichakul, Courtney Ann O'Donnell, Southern Poverty Law Center, Decatur, GA, Rahul Garabadu, Caitlin Felt May, Cory Isaacson, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb.

Daniel Walter White, Haynie, Litchfield & White, PC, Marietta, GA, for Defendant Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration.

Heather Jean Szilagyi, Pro Hac Vice, Washington, DC, Tara Lederer, Schulte Roth & Zabel, LLP, New York, NY, Daniel Walter White, Haynie, Litchfield & White, PC, Marietta, GA, for Defendant Janine Eveler.

Jonathan Dean Crumly, Sr., Scott Eric Anderson, Philip Wade Savrin, William H. Buechner, Jr., Freeman Mathis & Gary LLP, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant Cobb County School District.

ORDER

Eleanor L. Ross, United States District Judge

There are several matters pending before the Court. The Court sets out its reasoning and conclusions below.

I. Factual Background¹

This case stems from the 2022 redrawing of the seven (7) districts from which members of the Cobb County School District Board of Education (the "Board") are elected. See generally Am. Compl. [Doc. 37]. Plaintiffs Karen Finn; Dr. Jullian Ford; Hylah Daly; Jenne Dulcio; Galeo Latino Community Development Fund, Inc.; New Georgia Project Action Fund; League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb; and Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, Inc. allege that the 2022 Board voting district map (the "Map") violates their rights pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it is the product of illegal racial gerrymandering. See id. Specifically, Plaintiffs contend that the Map was drawn with race as a predominating factor, both to preserve a narrow 4-3 majority of white members on the Board and to "create a firewall against the rising Black and Latinx political power" in Cobb County by packing Black and Latinx voters into three (3) of the seven (7) voting districts. Id. ¶¶ 4, 45-46.

A. The Parties

Plaintiffs are both individuals and organizations. Plaintiffs Finn, Ford, Daly, and Dulcio (together, the "Individual Plaintiffs") are registered Cobb County voters who self-identify as Black, African American, biracial, or Haitian American. Id. ¶¶ 16-19. Plaintiffs Galeo, New Georgia, League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb, and Georgia Coalition (together, the "Organizational Plaintiffs") are nonprofit groups that work to protect and promote the voting rights of historically marginalized communities, including those of Black and Latinx voters. Id. ¶¶ 20-41. Defendants the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration and its director, Janine Eveler, in her official capacity (together, the "Election Defendants") are responsible for overseeing Cobb County elections and implementing election laws and regulations, including the Map at issue.² See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 42-43, 147-48, 150-52; see also O.C.G.A. §§ 21-2-40(b), 21-2-70. After Plaintiffs filed this case, the Cobb County School District (the "District") intervened as a Defendant. [Docs. 52, 60].

The District—through its governing body, the Board—played a role in the redistricting process that led to the creation of the Map at issue. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 1-4, 94-96. Specifically, this redistricting process began when, in 2018, the chairman of the Board (as part of his apparent official duties) hired an attorney from a consulting firm to draw the Map and later presented the Map to the other Board members for their approval. See id. The three (3) Black Board members objected to the Map and voted not to approve it, instead proposing that the Board retain "the 2012-enacted redistricting plan, which, upon [Plaintiffs'] information and belief, met the redistricting criteria available to the Board members at the time." Id. ¶ 4. The four (4) white Board members voted to approve the Map "exactly as drawn by the consulting firm" the Board's chairman had hired and submitted the same to the Georgia General Assembly for legislative approval. Id. ¶¶ 4-5. According to Plaintiffs, the Map "is a product of the Board's pattern and practice over the last several years to impose policies that disproportionately and negatively impact students of color and their families." Id. ¶ 10.

B. Enaction of the Map

After the Board voted 4-3 (along racial lines) on December 9, 2021, to submit the Map to the General Assembly, it was passed as part of House Bill 1028 ("HB 1028"). Id. ¶¶ 44-47. Subsequently, on March 2, 2022, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed HB 1028 into law, thereby redistricting voting districts for the Board elections the next ten (10) years. Id. ¶ 44. The authority to enforce HB 1028, including during the 2024 primary and general elections, passed to Election Defendants pursuant to Georgia law. Id. ¶¶ 147-51. Plaintiffs allege that "[b]y enforcing HB 1028, [Election Defendants] are subjecting Cobb [County] residents to a racially redistricted [M]ap" and "Plaintiffs' injuries flow directly from [this] conduct." Id. ¶ 158.

C. The Challenged Districts

According to Plaintiffs, the Map was drawn using race as the predominant factor for the purpose of suppressing the "growing political power of [Cobb] County's Black and Latinx population" following the "rapid diversification" of the county's population. Id. ¶ 1. "Using race as a predominant factor in redistricting may be justified in certain circumstances, such as ensuring compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ('VRA')[,]" but Plaintiffs claim that "neither the Board nor any of the state legislators conducted a functional analysis of each challenged District to support the [Map's] use of race" as legitimate and not pretextual. Id. ¶¶ 7-9. Instead, Plaintiffs claim the Map was designed to pack Black and Latinx voters into three (3) of the seven (7) voting districts for the District's Board seats (the "Challenged Districts"), thereby preserving the white majority voting population in the Board's four (4) other districts. Id. ¶¶ 4, 45-46.

Plaintiffs include the below figure in the Amended Complaint to illustrate Cobb County's "Black and Latinx voting age population figures by voting district" based on 2020 census data. See id. ¶ 157. The deeper hue a voting district is shaded in the below figure, the greater the percentage of that district's voting age population is Black and Latinx. Id.

Image materials not available for display.

See id. As shown in the figure above, "the majority of Cobb County's Black and Latinx communities live in the southern half of the [c]ounty, while most of the [c]ounty's white population lives in the north." Id. Pursuant to the voting district map for Board seats in Cobb County that was used from 2012 to 2022, "the districts currently represented by Black Board members[ ] skewed southeastward," while "the white members' districts . . . skewed northwestward[.]" Id. ¶ 158. Plaintiffs include the below figures in the Amended Complaint to illustrate how the current Map differs from that used between 2012 and 2022. See id. They contend that "the border lines superimposed in blue demonstrate how the Challenged Districts were rotated clockwise so Black and Latinx residents could be packed into" the Challenged Districts (Districts 2, 3, and 6). Id.

2012 Map

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2022 Map

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See id.

II. Procedural History

Plaintiffs initiated this action against Election Defendants on June 9, 2022, bringing a single claim pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for purported violations of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause based on racial gerrymandering. See Compl. ¶¶ 169-73 [Doc. 1]. As relief, Plaintiffs request that this Court: (a) declare that the Challenged Districts violate the ...