SMFNews: How a Zoning Fight Shaped Georgia Lawmaker Akbar Ali
Header photo: The Georgia House of Representatives chamber in the State Capitol in Atlanta. Photo: Harrison Keely (CC BY 4.0); adapted by SMF.
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. — Last week SMF reported that Rep. Akbar Ali, a Shia Muslim, won reelection to the Georgia House. Ali was unopposed in the Nov. 3 general election for House District 106 and received 16,635 votes, according to Gwinnett County’s official results on the Georgia Secretary of State’s website. This deep dive looks at how he got to the Capitol, and at the local zoning fight he says set him on that path.
A seat first won by 155 votes
Ali first won the District 106 seat in a special election runoff on Dec. 2, 2025, defeating Marqus Cole with about 54% of the more than 1,700 votes cast, the Georgia Recorder reported. State runoff results show Ali with 949 votes to Cole’s 794. The seat had been held by Rep. Shelly Hutchinson of Snellville, who stepped down in 2025 to care for a family member and endorsed Ali.
At 21, Ali became the youngest state legislator then serving in Georgia, according to the Georgia Recorder. In a March 2026 profile, Capitol Beat News Service described him, at 22, as the state’s youngest lawmaker. Hutchinson told Capitol Beat, “I’d never seen somebody so prepared yet so young.” In a Nov. 4 Facebook post, Ali called this month’s win his second term.
The Lilburn zoning fight
Ali told Capitol Beat that his drive to serve dates back to 2010, when the Gwinnett County mosque he grew up in became what he described as the center of a hate crime movement. The congregation wanted to expand, but the Lilburn City Council denied its rezoning applications more than once. Ali said threats of arson and other violence spread through his community and ended only after the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in.
Federal records describe what happened next. In August 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia and the Justice Department announced a settlement with the city of Lilburn, resolving allegations that it violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) when it rejected the congregation’s requests to rezone property for a new place of worship. The department noted that the members are Shia Muslims, who call the building they sought to build an “imambargah.”
The government’s complaint alleged that the city rejected the applications because of the religious bias of city officials and to appease residents who opposed a mosque for the same reason, and that Lilburn had regularly granted similar requests from non-Muslim religious groups. The week before the settlement was announced, the city voted to approve the zoning application. Lilburn also agreed not to impose different zoning or building requirements on the congregation or other religious groups, to publicize its nondiscrimination policies, to train city leaders on RLUIPA and to report periodically to the Justice Department, according to the department.
“Under federal law, cities may not use their zoning laws to discriminate against religious groups seeking to build places of worship,” Thomas E. Perez, then the assistant attorney general for civil rights, said at the time.
From the zoning fight to the Capitol
Ali told Capitol Beat that the experience led him to believe that good government means looking out for everyone, and that this was the promise he made to his district when he ran. His parents immigrated from Pakistan, and he said they taught him to value family, neighbors and community prosperity.
In his first session, Ali introduced House Bill 1244, which aims to guarantee teachers their duty-free lunch and planning periods, and signed onto House Bill 496, a bipartisan bill that would bar law enforcement officers from searching a vehicle or its occupants based on the scent of marijuana, Capitol Beat reported. He has named expanding health care, affordability and small business development as priorities, and said he brings English and Spanish interpreters on visits around his district so residents can reach the services his office offers.
Why it matters
Ali’s story links two kinds of civic participation: a congregation that turned to federal civil rights law when it faced a zoning denial, and a young member of that community who now helps write state law. He represents a southwestern portion of Gwinnett County, according to the Georgia Recorder, and his legislative office is in Atlanta. Georgia House members serve two-year terms.
SMF also covered Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman’s election to the Georgia State Senate this month.
“Rep. Ali’s path, from a community that had to fight for the right to build a place of worship to a seat in the Georgia House, shows what American Shia Muslims bring to public life. We congratulate him on his new term.”
Sources
Georgia Secretary of State, Gwinnett County official results, Nov. 3, 2026; Georgia Secretary of State, Dec. 2, 2025 runoff results; Georgia Recorder (Dec. 2, 2025); Capitol Beat News Service (March 3, 2026); U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia (Aug. 26, 2011); U.S. Department of Justice, United States v. City of Lilburn; Georgia General Assembly; SMF, Nov. 4, 2026.
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