MS Coast candidates disqualified after AG opinion on where they live. One is suing.
Several would-be local candidates on the Coast have had their campaigns halted by a controversial state attorney general opinion just days before the filing deadline. One of them is suing over it.
In a case being watched across Mississippi, Zach Grady, a Republican candidate for Ward 3 council in D’Iberville, has filed a petition to get his name back on the ballot before the April 6 election.
He was disqualified under the opinion issued Feb. 1 by Attorney General Lynn Fitch. It was written by Phil Carter, special assistant attorney general.
Under a 2019 law, candidates must have lived in the county or city they’re seeking to represent for two years before the election. The attorney general opinion concluded that they’re also required to have lived in the the specific district, such as a ward, they’re seeking to represent. That directly contradicted advice the secretary of state’s office had been giving candidates and election clerks for months.
“I lived in D’Iberville my whole life,” Grady said, and was an officer with D’Iberville Police Department from 2010 to 2020.
He’s owned a home in the city for more than 10 years, and a little over a year ago moved from Ward 4 to Ward 3.
“We had an opportunity to purchase my wife’s childhood home,” he said, which was less than a mile from where they were living, but across ward lines.
“I do believe I’m a qualified candidate,” he said Friday. “We believe we’re going to get back on the ballot.”
April 6 is the municipal primary election in Mississippi.
A hearing could be held March 11 or 12, said Malcolm Jones, a Pass Christian attorney representing Grady.
Hinds County retired judge Judge Jeff Weill was appointed by the Supreme Court to hear the case.
All eyes on D’Iberville
“Whatever happens in this case will affect the entire state,” said Oliver Diaz, who is representing his brother, Craig “Boots” Diaz, who is running for his third term as councilman for Ward 3.
It was a surprise that his brother was even named in the suit, attorney Diaz said, because his brother can’t get Grady back on the ballot or keep him out of the election.
White said he included Diaz in the petition because he is the opposing Republican candidate, and he believed the judge would expect it.
People in Tupelo, Starkville and other areas of the state where candidates were disqualified have contacted him, Jones said, and are watching the lawsuit.
It wasn’t like Diaz challenged Grady’s residency to the Republican committee to get him disqualified, he said.
“They did it on their own accord,” he said.
Other candidates disqualified
Kanesha McInnis, a Democrat seeking to run in Gulfport’s Ward 3, was disqualified by the Democratic Election Committee because of “lack of satisfactory verifications of your residency,” according to a letter she received from the Gulfport city clerk.
McInnis is not sure exactly what the committee meant, she said, and has not been able to get an answer from anyone on the committee or in the city to determine what residency requirements led to her disqualification.
Arneka Gardner-Keys, a Democrat who filed to run against Biloxi Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich, was disqualified by the Democratic committee because she does not live in the city. The attorney general opinion was not a factor in their decision.
Secretary of state ‘extremely concerned’
Secretary of State Michael Watson, which had told candidates and municipal clerks across the state that the residency requirement didn’t apply to wards, criticized the opinion.
“We are all extremely concerned about the impact this will have on candidates who have spent their time, money and other resources on campaigns that will come to a screeching halt due to this opinion,” Watson told the Northeast Daily Journal at the time. “The timing of this opinion, issued just days before the qualifying deadline, is inexcusable.”
The attorney general’s office has defended their process. Communications Director Colby Jordan pointed out that the office cannot issue opinions until they receive a request; that request eventually came from Rob Roberson, attorney for the Okitebbeha County Board of Supervisors.
“In this case, though the law has been in effect since 2019, and though the Attorney General’s Office suggested throughout 2020 to organizations and officials that called to ask questions about this new law that they request an official opinion, the Attorney General’s Office did not receive an official request until recently,” Jordan said in an email statement. “It was important to the Attorney General’s Office to ensure that the request went through the proper research and vetting process and get it out before the deadline.”
According to the attorney general’s office, Roberson made his request on Nov. 23, 69 days before the opinion was released.
Confusion in Biloxi’s Ward 2
Last September, Maurice Williams, a senior at the University of North Carolina who grew up in Ward 2, was thinking about challenging incumbent Felix Gines to represent the ward on Biloxi’s City Council. Classes were online because of the pandemic, and Williams was living with his grandmother in Biloxi’s Ward 4, so he asked for clarification on the residency requirements.
Biloxi municipal clerk Stacy Thacker sent the question to assistant secretary of state Hawley Robertson, who wrote on Sept. 22, 2020: “Yes, the two year residency only applies to the municipality as a whole, and not to the individual ward.”
Thacker sent the message to Williams, who concluded he would be eligible to run and launched his campaign while still living in Ward 4.
In late January, Robertson emailed Williams with an additional clarification: while it wasn’t necessary for him to have lived in Ward 2 for the past two years, he did need to live there “at the time the qualifying body meets to qualify candidates.”
Williams rushed to move into a home in Ward 2. He acknowledged that because “it needs a lot of work done,” he didn’t stay there every night. Still, he believed he would qualify to run.
Then came the attorney general opinion on Feb. 1.
Williams attended the meeting of the Biloxi Municipal Democratic Executive Committee on Feb. 19. When it came time to discuss the candidates for Ward 2, he delivered a speech pointing out that attorney general opinions are not legally binding; they simply constitute legal advice from the state’s top lawyer.
Incumbent Ward 2 Councilman Felix Gines also spoke at the meeting.
“I only asked them to follow the law in accordance to the way it was written, and of course the attorney general’s opinion in my opinion is the law,” Gines said. “So I just asked them to follow the law. It was pretty simple: follow the law.”
The minutes from the meeting indicate the committee agreed with Gines and cited the AG opinion. The recorded vote was 7-0 against certifying Williams’ candidacy. (Gines’ sister, Anna Gines, is chair of the committee but recused herself from the discussion of Ward 2.)
Williams’s candidacy was over. He estimates he had spent up to $2,400 on the campaign, recording videos and producing merchandise.
After the Feb. 19 meeting, he had decided to move on from the council race. But Zack Grady’s suit has shifted his thinking.
“I invested so much time and money, I’m not sure how much I can keep fighting,” Williams said. “I just want to make change, not hold a seat. However if others on the coast are willing to challenge this I will gladly do so with them.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 5:35 PM.
