Legislation introduced by Rep. Terry Coleman to make all local, county elections nonpartisan.

In a 1-30-05 post entitled "Senate Bills will (1) allow sheriffs to be elected nonpartisan if county so choses & (2) change probate judges to nonpartisan statewide," I wrote:

In a 12-10-04 post entitled "Taking nonpartisan elections a step further beyond judges. School board members doable now. Sheriffs? Maybe in the future," I wrote:

I would like to see Georgia law changed so that counties could, through local legislation, have the offices of county commissioners, clerk of the superior court, judge of the probate court, sheriff, probate judge, tax commissioner (some counties have a different office here), coroner, surveyor and whatever else I am overlooking, be added to the offices of judges and school board members that can be elected on a nonpartisan basis.

Senate Bill 80, introduced in the state Senate on January 28, 2005, does what is discussed above with regard to sheriffs. Thus a county, through local legislation, can have its sheriff elected on a nonpartisan basis.
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House Bill 433 introduced on 2-14-05 by Rep. Terry Coleman, et al., goes even further than I was proposing. It provides for the nonpartisan election of clerks of superior court, sheriffs, tax collectors, tax receivers, tax commissioners and coroners.

In my 1-30-05 post I noted:

"I sure wish the legislature would go ahead and add the other local offices discussed above to this legislation, but it probably won't happen this year."

Despite this legislation having been introduced into the House, since the Senate legislation has not be amended, I suspect that what we will see this year is the option to have our sheriffs elected on a nonpartisan basis county by county, and no across-the-board change making it and other local offices nonpartisan.