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Political Planets are aligned to allow vote on incorporation ... But for how long?

Decades of voting trends and political party behavior indicate that the vote on incorporation in November may be Peachtree Corners one and only chance to become a city.

Greetings,

I’d like to preface this article with a disclaimer that my intent is be neither pro-Democrat or pro-Republican in the point I will be trying to make but instead lay out an argument for city incorporation by showing how historical voting trends and political party behavior could impact our options down the road if we choose not to incorporate this November.  

Many of you who have lived in Gwinnett County for a long time, or Georgia for that matter, can remember when winning the Democratic primary basically assured victory in the General Election as the GOP was practically non-existent except in parts of the far North Georgia mountains and a few Atlanta suburbs populated mainly by recent transplants.  This condition ceased applying at a Presidential level in Georgia as early as 1964 but at a local level it continued in many rural areas until the mid 1990s and in some cases even early into this century.  I can remember voting for the first time in 1988 in Walton County and there were maybe one or two local contests with GOP opposition at all even though that county voted overwhelmingly for Reagan that year. 

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In Gwinnett County the GOP has been ascendant at the local level at least since the early 1980s (that is as far back as I could find any local detailed data).  For at least the last 30 years Gwinnett has been a key piece of the GOP “donut,” around the heavily Democratic city of Atlanta, that has propelled the GOP to victory in an increasing number of state wide races.  However, over the last 20+ years (since 1988) the Democratic share of the Gwinnett electorate has grown enormously even as the GOP gained more and more control at the state level. 

In the chart below you can see the details of this 20 year trend (1988 – 2008).  I have also included a forecast for 2012 and 2016 based on the previous 20 year historical trend using a Compound Average Growth Rate (CAGR).  This tool has some shortcomings as it simply extrapolates existing trends which does not take into account future changes or changes that possibly happened in the last five years that may have been smoothed out somewhat by the longer timeline.  For example, you can see from 2004 to 2008 that the number of GOP voters actually declined while the number of Democratic voters surged greatly.  This potential trend (decreasing GOP voters) for 2012 does not really show up in the 2012 forecast as the model is forecasting based on 20 years of data.   

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  GOP % of Total Democrat % of Total Other % of Total Total 1988 66,372 75.47% 20,948 23.82% 620 0.71% 87,940 1992 81,822 54.34% 44,253 29.39% 24,501 16.27% 150,576 1996 96,610 59.29% 53,819 33.03% 12,516 7.68% 162,945 2000 111,919 63.62% 57,975 32.96% 6,024 3.42% 175,918 2004 160,445 65.71% 81,708 33.46% 2,026 0.83% 244,179 2008 158,746 54.56% 129,025 44.35% 3,167 1.09% 290,938 2012 Fcst 188,993 49.87% 185,601 48.97% 4,388 1.16% 378,983 2016 Fcst 225,004 45.18% 266,985 53.60% 6,081 1.22% 498,069 CAGR (88-08) 19%   44%   39%   27%

As you can see in the table, if current trends hold, the Democratic Party stands an excellent chance of reaching parity within Gwinnett County in the 2012 election and by 2016 the Democrats could have a significant numerical majority. 

Many of you may be asking “how is this relevant to whether Peachtree Corners should become a city”? The relevance is that there is currently a window of opportunity where we, the citizens of Peachtree Corners, will get to choose whether to incorporate.  This window exists because all the political planets (The Governor, the General Assembly, the Gwinnett Delegation to the General Assembly) are all in support of allowing us to vote on incorporation.  Once the Democratic Party becomes the dominant party in Gwinnett (and voting trends indicate that is only a matter of time) there is a strong possibility that that window of opportunity will close. 

This possibility is based on the fact that historically (or for at least the last 35 years) the Democratic Party in Georgia has been opposed to allowing new cities to incorporate.  Sandy Springs first began an incorporation effort in the mid 1970s and it was not until 2005 that they were able to finally form a city.  Dunwoody began an incorporation movement in the 2000s and they were able to incorporate in 2008.  Johns Creek and Milton also began similar efforts around the same time.  What was the change, specifically for Sandy Springs, that happened that suddenly cleared away a 30-year opposition to incorporation in the General Assembly?  The change was that the GOP gained control of the General Assembly after the 2004 elections in addition to the Governor’s mansion which they had gained in 2002 with the election of Sonny Perdue.  With both the General Assembly and the Governor’s mansion the Republicans were able to move legislation through allowing for a vote on incorporating. 

The Democratic opposition was primarily based on economics.  By incorporating, the new cities would be depriving the remaining unincorporated areas, in their respective counties, of tax income that would now be going to these new cities.  Since the incorporating areas tended to be higher income areas the result was that the remaining unincorporated areas would have a lower average income and property value to tax for services.  To maintain the same level of services would almost certainly require a tax increase of some sort.  In both cases the unincorporated areas tended to be Democratic while the areas desiring to be incorporated were primarily Republican. 

The current situation in Gwinnett is somewhat different from the those in DeKalb and Fulton as there is support from current Gwinnett County leadership (currently all five commissioners are Republican) for the Peachtree Corners incorporation movement.  But considering the changing voting patterns in Presidential elections over the last 20 years it is just a matter of time until the Board of Commissioners adds one, two and eventually possibly a third Democrat which would give the Democratic Party a majority on the Board of Commissioners.      

Some may ask “what does it matter if Gwinnett becomes majority Democrat if the General Assembly is still controlled by the GOP and hence would still be open to allowing an incorporation vote down the road.”  The relevance is that the same voting trends in Gwinnett are also occurring at the state level as well.  The current makeup of the General Assembly (very heavily GOP) masks the fact that in the 2008 election the Democrats only lost the state by five percentage points and there are many reports that indicate the Obama election team has identified Georgia as a “battleground” state for 2012.  This is because the current demographic population shifts underway in the state heavily favor the Democratic Party.  This trend has not yet showed up in the makeup of the General Assembly but there is no doubt, based on historical voting patterns, that the Democratic Party will slowly but surely begin to gain back seats and quite possibly take back at least some part of the General Assembly in the next 10 years.  Once this occurs the historical data indicates that the window of opportunity for Peachtree Corners to incorporate will probably be closed. 

The point of this article is not to disparage the Democratic Party or praise the Republican Party or vice versa.  The point is to show that the citizens of Peachtree Corners, both Democratic and Republican, have what I believe, is a limited window of opportunity in which to incorporate.  If history is any guide, once the Democratic Party becomes the majority in Gwinnett and eventually the General Assembly, it is highly unlikely that we will have this opportunity again.   

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