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House · Passed · 2025-2026 Regular Session

HB 1120: Union County; governing authority; change from a sole commissioner to a five-member board of commissioners; provide advisory referendum

Last action June 12, 2026 · Effective Date

House Bill 1120 would require Union County to hold a nonbinding referendum this November asking voters whether the county should replace its sole commissioner with a five-member board of commissioners.

Read the full bill text

These buttons carry the bill's own text, not the summaries below. Copy for LLM, View as markdown, and Send to AI use the Markdown version: the text as filed, then the summaries under a heading that names them as ours. View raw is the text alone.

The summaries below were written by an AI model (claude-sonnet-5) from the text of the bill and are not part of it. Quote the text, not the summary. The stored text is the Enrolled version, the latest the General Assembly's website lists.

In plain language

Union County is currently run by a single elected commissioner rather than a multi-member board, which is the setup used in many other Georgia counties. This bill does not change that structure by itself. Instead it requires the county's election superintendent to hold an advisory referendum on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2026, asking voters a yes-or-no question: should the county's governing authority change from a sole commissioner to a five-member board of commissioners? The bill spells out the exact ballot language, requires the election to be publicly advertised for two weeks beforehand, and puts the cost on Union County. It also makes the election superintendent's duty to hold the vote mandatory, allowing any Union County voter to sue for a court order (a writ of mandamus) forcing the election to happen if the superintendent does not comply.

What the bill does

  • Requires Union County's election superintendent to hold an advisory referendum on November 3, 2026 on changing the county's government structure.
  • Sets the exact ballot wording asking voters whether to switch from a sole commissioner to a five-member board of commissioners.
  • Requires the election to be publicly advertised once a week for two weeks before the vote.
  • Assigns the cost of holding the election to Union County and requires results be certified to the Secretary of State.
  • Allows any Union County voter to seek a court order compelling the election superintendent to conduct the vote if they fail to do so.
  • Repeals any existing laws that conflict with the Act.

Who it affects

Registered voters in Union County, who will decide the referendum question; the Union County election superintendent, who must organize and pay for the vote; and county government officials, whose future structure could depend on the outcome.

Why it matters

The vote itself would not change Union County's government, since the referendum is only advisory, but a strong result could pressure the General Assembly to later pass a law restructuring the county from one commissioner to a five-member board, changing how local decisions get made.

Key provisions

  • Section 1 states the legislature's finding that the referendum serves a public purpose and is an essential governmental function justifying public funds.
  • Section 2 requires the election superintendent to call and hold the referendum on November 3, 2026 and specifies the required ballot language.
  • Section 2 requires two weeks of published notice before the election and places the election's cost on Union County.
  • Section 2 makes the superintendent's duty to hold the election mandatory and allows a voter to seek a writ of mandamus, a court order forcing compliance, if the superintendent fails to act.
  • Section 3 repeals any conflicting laws.

From the bill

“any elector of Union County may apply for a writ of mandamus to compel the election superintendent to perform his or her duties under this section”

Voters can sue to force the election to happen if officials fail to hold it.

Discussed in meetings (5)

The House and Senate meetings that took this bill up, from their machine transcripts. Each account was written by Georgia Commons with AI and is not part of the record; the video is what was said.

  1. House floor session, February 20, 2026 (legislative day 22)

    From 0:47:45 · Watch on the General Assembly's Vimeo channel · Confirmed by the bill's status history (House Committee Favorably Reported)

    Summary by Georgia Commons: The clerk read a favorable committee report on HB 1120. The Union County measure was later included in the uncontested local calendar, with no separate presentation or debate. The House passed the calendar as a whole by 162–0.

Status timeline

  1. 2026-06-12Effective Date
  2. 2026-05-12Act 660
  3. 2026-05-12House Date Signed by Governor (House)
  4. 2026-04-06House Sent to Governor (House)
  5. 2026-03-03Senate Passed/Adopted (Senate)
  6. 2026-03-03Senate Committee Favorably Reported (Senate)
  7. 2026-02-24Senate Read and Referred (Senate)
  8. 2026-02-20House Passed/Adopted (House)
Show full history (13 actions)
  1. 2026-02-20House Third Readers (House)
  2. 2026-02-20House Committee Favorably Reported (House)
  3. 2026-02-04House Second Readers (House)
  4. 2026-02-03House First Readers (House)
  5. 2026-02-02House Hopper (House)

Sponsors

  • Stan Gunter (R, HD-8)Primary sponsor

Votes

  1. PassedHouse voteFebruary 20, 2026

    162 yea, 0 nay (9 not voting, 6 excused)

    Local Calendar: House Vote #537

  2. PassedSenate voteMarch 3, 2026

    45 yea, 0 nay (6 not voting, 4 excused)

    LOCAL CONSENT CALENDAR: Senate Vote #600

Topics

  • local government
  • county commissioners
  • Union County
  • election referendum
  • government structure

Ask about this bill

Answers come from this document. Not legal advice.

Machine-readable https://georgiacommons.org/bills/2025-2026/hb1120.md · https://georgiacommons.org/bills/index.md · MCP https://mcp.georgiacommons.org/mcp