CAMDEN COUNTY v. SWEATT, JUDGE

Camden County had been planning a commercial rocket launch facility, and its Board of Commissioners approved an agreement to buy land for it. Citizens opposed to the project gathered signatures under Georgia's home rule provision for counties and petitioned the county's probate judge, Robert C. Sweatt, Jr., for a special election to repeal the resolutions approving that land deal. Judge Sweatt found the petition valid and called the election, which the county tried to stop by filing a lawsuit in superior court seeking writs of mandamus and prohibition against the judge along with a declaratory judgment that the referendum was unauthorized. The superior court denied the county's requests, and the county appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed, holding that Georgia's home rule provision allows electors to petition for a referendum not only on formal local acts of a county's governing authority but also on ordinances, resolutions, and regulations like the ones the Board passed. The court also found the county had no standing to fight the earlier probate court ruling and that mandamus and prohibition were unavailable once the election had already occurred.

The Home Rule Paragraph of the Georgia Constitution allows county electors to petition for a referendum to repeal not only local acts of the county's governing authority but also ordinances, resolutions, and regulations adopted under the county's first-tier home rule power, so the probate judge acted within his authority in calling the special election.

The ruling gives Georgia counties' registered voters a real check on local government decisions made by resolution or regulation, not just formal local acts, meaning county boards may face more referendum challenges to routine decisions like land purchases, zoning, and budgeting.

Affirmed

1. The court explained that mandamus, a court order forcing an official to perform a duty, only works looking forward and cannot undo actions already taken; because the special election had already been held and certified, mandamus could not unwind Judge Sweatt's earlier rulings.
2. On the county's request for a declaratory judgment, the court first found the county was never a legal 'party' to the probate court proceedings because Georgia's home rule provision gives no county the right to object to an elector petition, so the county's earlier failure to appeal did not block it from later seeking a declaratory judgment.
3. The court then interpreted the constitutional home rule language itself, reading subparagraph (b)(2) to cover not just 'local acts' passed by two votes of the county board but also ordinances, resolutions, and regulations adopted under the county's basic home rule power, because that subparagraph's text expressly adds language beyond 'local acts' that would otherwise be meaningless.
4. Applying that reading, the court concluded the Board's resolutions authorizing the land purchase option were exactly the kind of resolution subject to a voter referendum, so Judge Sweatt had authority to consider and grant the electors' petition.
5. Because Judge Sweatt acted within the probate court's lawful authority, the court held that a writ of prohibition, which is reserved for situations where a court exceeds its jurisdiction, was unavailable, and the superior court correctly denied all the relief the county sought.

• home rule
• spaceport referendum
• Camden County
• writ of mandamus
• writ of prohibition