‘I have not moved’: Mayoral candidate decries rival’s residency challenge

When the county elections board meets next week to review a challenge to Columbus mayoral candidate Zephaniah Baker’s residency, it will have to consider a range of factors other than where he has a homestead exemption.

Rival Beth Harris filed a March 22 complaint with the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations, stating Baker “is not a current resident of Columbus” and appending documents showing he and Sharon Cosby have a homestead exemption on a house at 40 Lantana Way in Coweta County.

Baker’s March 9 notice of candidacy lists his home as 1091 Bolton Court, off Rigdon Road south of the Columbus Public Library.

City law requires candidates for mayor to live here. The elections board has scheduled a hearing on the challenge for 2 p.m. Thursday in its conference room in the Columbus City Service Center.

Harris said she was not trying to be “vindictive,” but she’d long heard Baker moved out of town and felt the board should investigate. “I did what I thought was right,” she said.

Baker said he has never lived anywhere but Columbus: “I have not lived any other place. … I have not moved. I have never moved.”

He recounted becoming a single father after losing his wife, and later marrying his current spouse, whose business is in Stone Mountain. She could not drive there from Columbus every day, so she moved to Newnan, splitting the distance between her job and her spouse, he said.

Though Harris’ challenge cites only Baker’s Coweta County homestead exemption, Georgia law requires authorities to review a range of considerations while determining residency, and the state Supreme Court in the 2008 decision Handel v. Powell ruled a homestead exemption cannot be the sole deciding factor.

In that case, then-Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel had disqualified Public Service Commission candidate Jim Powell on the basis of his having a homestead exemption on property outside the district he hoped to represent.

The court overruled Handel, noting state law cites 15 factors to consider in determining residency, so authorities cannot rely on one only and ignore the others.

In reference to Handel, the court wrote in its unanimous decision:

“The Secretary’s analysis had the effect of elevating the ‘homestead exemption’ rule … above the remaining rules contained therein, effectively eviscerating their application in any case questioning the qualifications of a candidate for elective office should the candidate own a home on which a homestead exemption is enjoyed…. Had the General Assembly intended such a preeminent role for the homestead exemption in determining the residence of a person desiring to qualify to run for elective office, it would have so stated.”

The law is Code of Georgia Section 21-2-217, which states no one loses residency by moving away temporarily with the intention of returning, unless the person changes his or her voter registration or citizenship.

It also says no one’s voter registration has to be the same as his or her spouse’s, and no one’s stated intention of moving away without ever doing so matters.

Voter registrars also should consider “where the person receives significant mail such as personal bills,” and “financial independence, business pursuits, employment, income sources, residence for income tax purposes, age, marital status, residence of parents, spouse, and children, … leaseholds, sites of personal and real property owned by the applicant, motor vehicle and other personal property registration.”

Baker said he gets his utility bills at Bolton Court, as well as payments for serving on the city’s Board of Equalization. It’s also the address on his driver’s license and voter registration, he said. City tax records list him as the property owner.

“Columbus has always been my home,” he said.

He accused Harris of “exploiting the system” as part of her campaign strategy. Columbus already faces costly legal issues, and doesn’t need more, he said: “We’re trying to cut costs, not add to them.”

Harris said she had expected some backlash for filing the challenge. “It’s probably going to cause me more harm than good,” she said.

This story was originally published March 30, 2018 at 4:32 PM with the headline "‘I have not moved’: Mayoral candidate decries rival’s residency challenge."