In 2021, the City of Atlanta adopted an ordinance authorizing the lease of city-owned land in DeKalb County to the Atlanta Police Federation for a new training facility. A coalition of individuals and organizations sought to repeal this ordinance through a local referendum petition. The City of Atlanta Municipal Code, specifically section 66-37(b), required that anyone collecting signatures for such a petition must be a resident of the City of Atlanta. The plaintiffs, who lived in DeKalb County outside the city limits, were barred from collecting signatures due to this requirement. They sued, arguing the residency restriction violated their First Amendment rights by chilling their political speech. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, ordering the City to issue new petitions without the residency requirement and restarting the signature collection period. The City appealed, arguing the referendum process itself was invalid under state law for this type of ordinance.
The Eleventh Circuit focused its analysis on the requirement of irreparable harm, which is essential for granting a preliminary injunction. The court determined that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate irreparable harm because they lacked a legal right to the referendum process they sought to utilize. The court looked to Georgia state law, specifically the Home Rule for Municipalities Act, and the controlling precedent of Kemp v. City of Claxton. In Kemp, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that the petition and referendum procedure in the state code applies only to amendments of municipal charters, not to the repeal of local ordinances. The Eleventh Circuit explained that because the plaintiffs were attempting to repeal a local ordinance rather than amend the city charter, the referendum process was not an available legal vehicle for them. The court reasoned that one cannot suffer irreparable harm from being denied the right to participate in a process that the state has not authorized for the specific purpose at hand. The court rejected the argument that the recent decision in Camden County v. Sweatt overruled Kemp, noting that Kemp remains controlling precedent for municipal charters and that the plaintiffs' reliance on the City Charter's general referendum language did not grant them independent power to bypass state law constraints. Consequently, the district court erred in finding irreparable harm, as the plaintiffs were merely seeking to participate in a process that was legally unavailable to them.
The preliminary injunction prohibiting the City of Atlanta from enforcing the residency requirement for signature gatherers is vacated. The case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The decision clarifies that under current Georgia law, referendum petitions cannot be used to repeal local ordinances, only to amend city charters. This limits the ability of non-residents to challenge local ordinances via referendum in Atlanta, as the underlying legal mechanism for such a challenge is unavailable. The ruling leaves open the question of whether the Georgia Supreme Court might eventually overrule Kemp, but for now, the residency requirement stands as a barrier to a process that is legally inaccessible for this specific type of ordinance.