Judge rules a Coast candidate can run after being disqualified under new AG opinion
Zachery Grady’s name could be on the ballot in the April 6 primary for a seat on the D’Iberville council after a judge ruled Wednesday that he was wrongly disqualified.
“I’m just very excited,” Grady told the Sun Herald soon after he learned of the ruling. “I always believed that this was going to be the judge’s decision. I trusted the process and I trusted the system. Today the right decision was made.”
Attorney Oliver Diaz is representing his brother, incumbent Councilman Craig “Boots” Diaz, in the case and on Monday filed an appeal of the decision.
The hearing was held March 12 in Gulfport and on March 17, Judge Jeff Weill, retired judge from Hinds County, ruled that Grady is qualified to run for the office he seeks as a Ward 3 councilman. Weill ordered the Mississippi Republican Committee and the city clerk put Grady’s name on the ballot and absentee ballots.
The Supreme Court appeal vacates the decisions by the trial court, which keeps Grady’s candidacy in question just two weeks before the election.
There was no absentee ballot in Ward 4, because it was an uncontested race, but the judge said Grady and Diaz should both be put on the ballot.
The committee disqualified Grady based on an attorney general’s opinion, 5 days before the qualifying deadline, which said candidates must live in the ward in which they seek office for 2 years.
The judge also ruled that opinion was incorrect. Under D’Iberville’s council-manager form of government. the candidate must live in the municipality for the prior two years, but not the ward, the ruling said.
That decision could affect candidates in other parts of the state, including Anthony Hall, a candidate for alderman in the Pass Christian election.
Grady had lived in D’Iberville for years, but less than 2 years ago moved from Ward 4 to Ward 3.
“The campaign has started back up immediately,” Grady said after the judge’s decision.
He thanked his family, supporters and Attorney Malcolm Jones, who said Wednesday “We are glad that the residency question has been resolved.” They are looking for Grady’s name to be put on the absentee ballots as soon as possible, Jones said.
The appeal, like the original trial, will be done under an expedited process, Diaz said. The court can ask for additional information or ask for a hearing.
“Most or these are decided without a hearing,” he said.
Biloxi’s Ward 2 race also affected
Maurice Williams, who was running in Biloxi’s Ward 2 to challenge incumbent Felix Gines in the primary, was also disqualified under the attorney general’s opinion. On Wednesday afternoon, he said he’s considering trying to get back in the race.
He said he plans to reach out to the Biloxi Municipal Democratic Executive Committee, which voted to disqualify him, citing the attorney general’s opinion, on Feb. 19.
Williams, a senior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, had received guidance from the secretary of state’s office in the fall of 2020 that the residency requirement didn’t apply to the specific ward but to the city as a whole.
Williams grew up in Ward 2 but recently was living in Ward 4 with his grandmother.
In late January, he learned from the secretary of state’s office that he needed to establish residency before the qualifying deadline, not before the date of the election, as he had thought. He posted on social media he leased the house in Ward 2 on Jan. 26, just ahead of the Feb. 5 qualifying deadline.
Gines, who attended the Feb. 19 executive committee meeting and made a speech arguing the committee should disqualify Williams, said Williams was disqualified because he didn’t meet the residency requirement.
“He was disqualified because he wasn’t truthful about his residency,” Gines said.
Before ruling on Williams’ residency, the Biloxi Democratic Committee went to the house Williams said he leased and found it vacant, Gines said.
The Sun Herald reviewed the minutes of the executive committee meeting, which indicate that the committee cited the attorney general’s opinion in the decision to disqualify Williams.
Williams said that he did not spend every night at the house in Ward 2 because “it needed a lot of work.”
After he was disqualified on Feb. 19, he ended his campaign and moved back to his grandmother’s home in Ward 4.
The committee sent a letter to Williams at the Ward 2 house, postmarked Feb. 26, and it was returned with the message the house was vacant. When the committee contacted him by phone, Williams asked that the letter be forwarded to an address on Brasier Road, which is not in Ward 2.
The home Williams claimed as his residence is still vacant, Gines said, and has no water meter or electric service.
“They told me a month ago I couldn’t run,” Williams said. “The lease is still there, but I’m not going to pay for a house to get fixed that I don’t have to immediately move into.”
He did not file a lawsuit asking for court review of the committee’s decision, as the candidates did in D’Iberville and Pass Christian.
Williams said he is also considering trying to run as an independent. (Tracey D. Smith is currently running as an independent in Ward 2.)
“I never threw my yard signs away, though,” he said.
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 3:10 PM.
