ATLANTA – The Georgia Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the creation of the city of Mableton inside the borders of Cobb County.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the 2022 state law creating Mableton and providing a charter for the new city violated the “Single Subject Rule” in the Georgia Constitution prohibiting the General Assembly from passing legislation involving more than one subject.
The Cobb residents who filed the suit argued that a provision in the law establishing more than one community improvement district (CID) within Mableton violated the Single Subject Rule.
In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Carla Wong McMillian wrote for the court that the Single Subject Rule only applies when provisions in a state law include two or more subjects that are “incongruous” or “unrelated” to the underlying bill.
“Not only is the legislature exercising similar powers in chartering a city and creating CIDs, but in this case, the legislature is exercising its powers in connection with the creation of a single municipality,” McMillian wrote. “The purpose of those CIDs is to allow Mableton to finance certain infrastructure and improvements in the same way that the charter provides for Mableton to exercise other power to finance its operations.”
Voters approved the creation of the new city in November 2022.