Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens appears to have scared off any serious challengers as he prepares to run for his second term. That means the race to watch in Georgia’s capital city this fall will be for city council president, where a referendum over support of law enforcement looks to take center stage.
City Councilwoman Marci Collier Overstreet
The race was triggered by the announcement that current President Doug Shipman will retire at the end of the year. City Councilwoman Marci Collier Overstreet, a close Dickens ally, was quick to jump into the race to succeed him. Like the mayor, Overstreet has been an ardent supporter of the controversial Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in DeKalb County, which opened earlier this year. The drama surrounding the facility’s construction has been well documented, with protestors (many from out of state) committing acts of violence, and one even being killed after opening fire at Georgia State Patrol officers.
But throughout that saga, public support for the center remained high, and while left-leaning opposition groups pledged to make Dickens’ life on the campaign trail hell, they were unable to find any real candidate to challenge him.
Rohit Malhotra
The second candidate to enter the council president’s race is Rohit Malhotra, founder and executive director of the Center for Civic Innovation. Overstreet was quick to welcome a debate about the training center as the race moves forward this summer. “If he doesn’t, I absolutely will,” she said. “The people of Atlanta want to continue to feel safe and preserve all of the good work that we’ve done around safety and training and policing.”
Mahlotra, meanwhile, was hesitant to frame the issue as black and white. “It’s so easy to be like, all right, well, are you for or against this thing?” he said. “If that’s what we turn this election to be about, then we’re missing what voters are actually asking us to do.”
But as an establishment, mayoral-backed candidate in Overstreet squares off with a more progressive outsider in Malhotra, expect debate over local law enforcement and its new sparkling training center to make headlines.
What does a city council president actually do?
The position of city council president is actually unique within Georgia – in fact Atlanta is the only city in the state to even have one.
It functions similarly to how the state lieutenant governor’s office functions with regard to the state senate; the council president has the power to break ties, (a rarity since there are 15 councilmembers) presides over city council meetings, and most importantly selects which councilmembers will serve on and chair each committee.
That ability gives the president immense control over the actual legislation introduced and passed by the city council each year. A council president friendly with the mayor will make progressing his agenda much smoother, while one opposed can throw a wrench into the legislative process with a conflicting vision of the city’s future.
