HB 369 Vote Explainer: Food Trucks > Partisan Attacks on Metro Atlanta DAs

Quick Take

This bill was originally a bill requiring safety lights on food trucks, and it passed the House that way. The Senate completely rewrote the entire bill to turn it into a partisan attack against metro Atlanta county officials and District Attorneys.

Why It Matters

The original bill, passed in the 2025 session, was a good attempt to increase safety around food truck operations. Partisan MAGA Republicans in the Senate removed that language in its entirety and replaced it with language that has the effect of forcing metro Atlanta counties to have non-partisan races for many county elected positions, but not the rest of the state.

Key Facts

HB 369:

• Requires that most county elected officials be elected in non-partisan races for counties that are "consolidated law enforcement counties".
• Defines "consolidated law enforcement counties" as "any county where the elected office of county coroner has been abolished".
• The only counties in the state of Georgia that have abolished the elected county coroner are Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Dekalb, and Clayton. Under Georgia law, counties are able to abolish the elected county coroner and replace them with an appointed Medical Examiner, to ensure professionalism in counties with larger populations. Appointed Medical Examiners must be medical doctors.

My Perspective

Zombie Bill

First things first, this is a zombie bill, and a particularly egregious one. This bill was sponsored by Dexter Sharper, a Democratic House member from Valdosta and it was about food truck safety. In an attempt at bipartisanship, Representative Sharper found a Republican, Representative Bill Hitchens, to be co-sponsor, or 2nd signer.

Representative Sharper resigned during the 2026 session after allegations of fraud surfaced.

After the Senate removed everything about food trucks from this bill and inserted this nakedly partisan power grab, Representative Hitchens presented it to the House, did not explain the changes to the chamber, and took no questions.  It passed on strictly party lines, with only a couple of Republicans voting against it.

Highly Partisan Power Grab

To be clear: I think local races should be non-partisan, and I suspect most of the hardest-right wing Republicans in the district do as well. With Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties making up the Western Judicial Circuit, Republicans have long disliked that nearly every DA ever elected was a partisan Democrat because ACC has a larger and more Democratic voter base. My own view is that the law should never be partisan.

If this bill had transitioned county positions all across the state to non-partisan positions, I would have happily voted in favor. But that was not what was presented, and only applying this in a partisan manner to metro Atlanta counties for perceived partisan benefit to Republicans in those counties.

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