The Georgia Supreme Court last week offered new hope for a local ballot initiative spearheaded by members of Sapelo Island, Georgia’s Gullah Geechee community. The initiative seeks to overturn zoning changes that members of the group argue will price them out of their homes. Bailey v. McIntosh County clarifies the scope of local direct democracy rights that the state supreme court first recognized in 2023. The case is also a striking example of how voter initiatives can be a tool for communities shut out of political power.

The Gullah Geechee are descendants of emancipated slaves who live in what had long been isolated island and coastal settlements in the low country from North Carolina to Florida. Gullah Geechee communities developed distinctive traditions that retained many elements of West African cuisine, crafts, and folklore, as well as a unique creole language called Gullah. Over time, however, many of these settlements disappeared, due at least in part to overlapping trends of underinvestment, gentrification, and climate change.

One of the country’s last Gullah Geechee communities, called Hogg Hummock (or Hog Hammock), has between 30 and 50 residents and sits on less than one square mile of land on Sapelo Island. Hogg Hummock is part of McIntosh County, which has 11,000-plus residents, more than 60 percent of whom are white.

In recent years, Hogg Hummock’s residents have voiced concerns about housing affordability, pointing to an influx of vacation homes in their community. These concerns came to a head in 2023, when McIntosh County’s commissioners voted 3–2 to change the zoning ordinance governing Hogg Hummock, more than doubling the maximum allowable house size from 1,400 to 3,000 square feet.

The move prompted sharp opposition from many Gullah Geechee residents, who argued that the change would encourage more vacation homes and lead to higher taxes that would put pressure on residents to sell their land. In response, the county commission chair told the Associated Press, “I don’t need anybody to lecture me on the culture of Sapelo Island. If you don’t want these outsiders, if you don’t want these new homes being built . . . don’t sell your land.”

That might have been the end of the story, but earlier that same year, the Georgia Supreme Court had breathed life into a long-ignored clause of the Georgia Constitution: the initiative section of the home rule provision. Introduced in 1966, the provision contains a subsection stating that “repeals of ordinances, resolutions, or regulations” passed by counties “may be initiated by a petition.” In Camden County v. Sweatt, the Georgia high court ruled that this text plainly means what it says. Even though, prior to Sweatt, direct democracy had never been used in Georgia to repeal county ordinances, the court decided that the home rule provision authorized such voter-initiated ballot measures.

Relying on the home rule provision, Hogg Hummock residents and other supporters collected more than 2,300 signatures from registered voters in support of a referendum to repeal the zoning ordinance. A special election was set for October 1, 2024. But the county sued, and a state superior court judge halted the referendum while early voting was already underway. The court ruled that the county’s zoning power came from another provision in the Georgia Constitution that did not provide for citizen initiatives. (The court also temporarily blocked the implementation of the new ordinance to allow for an appeal.)

In a unanimous ruling, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision. It concluded that the home rule provision governed the county’s power to pass zoning ordinances, meaning that such ordinances could be repealed via a voter-initiated ballot measure as established in Sweatt. And as in Sweatt, the court relied on a close textual analysis, including comparing how the Georgia Constitution’s treatment of home rule and zoning powers had evolved as the state adopted new constitutions in 1966, 1976, and 1983 (the last still operative today).

This is one of many legal battles that the Gullah Geechee residents of Hogg Hummock have fought in recent years. Residents have previously challenged property tax hikes — leading to a temporary freeze — and won access to services such as trash collection and firefighters for their community. They also challenged McIntosh County’s zoning ordinance on state and federal constitutional grounds. “We’re still fighting all the time,” one longtime Hogg Hummock resident, Maurice Bailey, told the Associated Press. “They’re not going to stop. The people moving in don’t respect us as people. They love our food, they love our culture. But they don’t love us.”

It remains to be seen whether the zoning ordinance is ultimately defeated at the ballot box. But it is now clear that direct democracy is another legal tool for Hogg Hummock residents seeking to preserve their unique community.

“Nearly half of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is up for reelection next month,” writes State Court Report founding editor Douglas Keith. The outcome of the races could affect abortion access and shape voting rights in the state. Read more

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is attempting to enforce a Texas judgment against a New York–based doctor accused of violating Texas’s abortion ban by providing abortion-inducing drugs to Texans via telehealth. Precedent supports the refusal to enforce out-of-state civil judgments like this one, writes UCLA law professor Lindsay Wiley. Read more

“The Pennsylvania Constitution was born of revolution and remains revolutionary,” writes University of Pittsburgh School of Law Dean Jerry Dickinson as part of State Court Report’s essay series about the nation’s constitutions. “From its radical 1776 origins to its role in 2020 election litigation, the document and the courts interpreting it have evolved into an architecture for preserving democratic norms.” Read more

In a sweeping review of how criminal punishment has developed throughout history, Yale Law School’s Judith Resnik lays “the groundwork for developing a new constraint on punishment,” including that “governments cannot set out to ‘ruin’ a person.” Resnik is also a State Court Report advisory board member. Read more

This month, state supreme courts are considering cases involving the right to insult and record police in Montana, the constitutionality of New York’s voter protection law, Alaska’s restrictions on who may perform abortions, and more, write State Court Report’s Sarah Kessler and Erin Geiger Smith. Read more

Trial began in abortion providers’ challenge of certain Kansas abortion restrictions, including state mandates to relay information that the providers allege is medically inaccurate and a requirement that they report patients’ reasons for seeking an abortion. State Court Report previously covered the state supreme court’s reaffirmation of a state constitutional right to abortion.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered parties to file briefs arguing whether the court must appoint a panel to hear two state constitutional challenges to Wisconsin’s current congressional district map. The suits claim that the map is a partisan gerrymander and an “anti-competitive gerrymander,” respectively. State Court Report recently wrote about partisan gerrymandering cases in state courts.

A New Jersey trial court dismissed a state constitutional challenge by more than 20 localities to a 2024 law designed to improve enforcement of the state’s Mount Laurel doctrine, a seminal line of state supreme court rulings requiring each municipality to provide its “fair share” of affordable housing. The towns are expected to appeal. State Court Report recently wrote about this law and the doctrine’s 50th anniversary.

Center for Coalfield Justice v. Washington County Board of Elections, Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Held, in a 4–3 decision, that a county election board policy that provided no notice to voters whose mail-in ballots were disqualified for defects and gave the misimpression they could not vote by provisional ballot violated their state procedural due process rights. According to the majority, the board was required to provide accurate notice to voters when their mail-in ballots were set aside for errors. // Pennsylvania Capital-Star

Montenegro v. Fontes, Arizona Supreme Court
Held that lawmakers have standing to pursue their claim that provisions of a citizen-initiated “dark money” disclosure law that delegate implementation and enforcement authority to a state elections commission violate separation of powers. The state had argued that the commission has not yet exercised its authority in a way that invades legislative prerogatives, and thus legislators suffered no injury that would support standing. // Tucson Sentinel

Commonwealth v. Anthony Lewis, Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Declined, in a split decision, to adopt a stringent new test for the evidence required to designate an area “high crime,” such that that fact can be considered as part of the “totality of the circumstances” analysis used to assess whether reasonable suspicion exists for a police stop. The court did suggest, however, that the label had been overused. In dissent, Justice David Wecht argued that the court should have taken the opportunity to depart from federal precedent and rule that the neighborhood in which a stop occurs has no bearing on reasonable suspicion under the state’s search and seizure clause. // Union-Bulletin

You can find briefs and opinions from notable state constitutional lawsuits in our State Case Database.

HYBRID EVENT   HYBRID EVENT: The Power of State Constitutional Rights Thursday, November 6, 8:15 a.m.–5 p.m. Friday, November 7, 9:15 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Arthur Rubloff Building Northwestern Pritzker School of Law 375 E. Chicago Ave. Chicago, Illinois RSVP for this free in-person and virtual event State courts and constitutions are increasingly in the spotlight as significant sources of rights. In areas ranging from abortion to education to property rights, many state constitutions offer protections that are distinct from and often more expansive than those found in the U.S. Constitution. Join the Brennan Center, State Court Report, and the Northwestern University Law Review for a two-day symposium at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law exploring the future of state constitutional rights, including the substantive rights protected by state constitutions, state constitutional amendments, and emerging issues in areas such as LGBTQ+ rights and voting rights. RSVP today Produced in partnership with the Brennan Center for Justice and the Northwestern University Law Review Illinois CLE credit for this event is pending. If approved, credit will be offered to in-person participants.