Shafer introduces state boundary legislation

Published 10:57 am Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Submitted by the Senate Press Office



ATLANTA – Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) today introduced a resolution asserting that the 35th Parallel is Georgia’s true northern border and providing for the appointment of joint boundary commissions to resurvey and correctly mark Georgia’s borders with North Carolina and Tennessee.

“The 35th Parallel was the boundary between Georgia and North Carolina when those two states joined the 11 others to create the United States of America, and it became boundary between Georgia and Tennessee when that state was created from the territory of North Carolina,” Sen. Shafer said. “It remains the boundary today.”

According to Senate Resolution 822, authored by Sen. Shafer, “a flawed survey conducted in 1818 and never accepted by the State of Georgia erroneously marks the 35th Parallel approximately one mile south of its actual location.”

“A misplaced survey marker is just that and nothing more,” Sen. Shafer asserted. “A state boundary can only be changed by the legislatures of the states, with the consent of Congress. It cannot be changed by a mathematician with a faulty compass or a skittish surveying party afraid of the Indians.”

The resolution recounts multiple legislative acts by Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina and a U.S. Court of Appeals decision acknowledging the erroneous survey and the need to resurvey and correctly mark the border.

The resolution creates a Georgia-Tennessee Boundary Line Commission and a North Carolina-Tennessee Boundary Line Commission, both comprised of six legislators appointed by the lieutenant governor and speaker of the House. The resolution directs these commissions to meet with counterparts from Tennessee and North Carolina, resurvey the border and “take such further or other action or pursue such remedy or remedies as (the commission) deems proper to establish the definite and true boundary lines.”

Although the resolution does not explicitly assert Georgia’s riparian rights to the Tennessee River, it notes that the 35th Parallel is “north of the southernmost bank of the Tennessee River.”

Sen. Shafer’s resolution has more than 50 co-sponsors in the Senate. A similar resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Harry Geisinger (R-Roswell).