Georgia Democrats expect a federal judge to reject three new electoral maps designed by their Republican colleagues in a ruling that will determine whether Black voting power in the state is properly increased or inappropriately undermined by the plans.
In party-line votes, both Georgia General Assembly chambers approved the state House and state Senate redistricting maps that GOP leaders unveiled a week ago. The Senate also advanced a U.S. congressional redistricting map Tuesday afternoon. The new maps were supposed to address U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones’ Oct. 26 decision that Georgia’s current political maps must be redrawn to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which bars discrimination in redistricting and voting.
Democrats acknowledged the GOP’s new maps create the required number of majority-Black districts, but they said they also break up “minority opportunity” districts, territories in which nonwhite voters collectively constitute a majority of the electorate. That, they contend, violates the court’s ruling.
“They’ve traded majority Black districts and undone minority opportunity districts,” state Sen. Sonya Halpern told Capital B Atlanta on Tuesday in reference to maps designed by her GOP colleagues. Halpern, a Democrat, represents Atlanta and several of its southwest suburbs. She, along with state Sen. Gloria Butler of the 55th District, were among Democrats who voted against the GOP map in the Senate.
“This is not meeting the judge where he told us that we needed to be,” Halpern said.
Jones’ October ruling required the state legislature to include five new majority-Black state House districts, two additional majority-Black state Senate districts, and another majority-Black congressional district in west-metro Atlanta to ensure Black folks have equitable representation in the legislature.
If the new maps land back before Jones, the outcome could be similar to what happened in Alabama in October, where a panel of federal judges decided on a new voting map after it ruled that Republicans had twice run afoul of the Voting Rights Act by disfavoring Black voters. The court-approved Alabama map created a new, majority-Black and Democrat-leaning district in a state whose legislature and congressional delegation are dominated by Republicans.
In Georgia, a new map will impact the degree of added influence Black voters have on politics in a state where nonwhite voters now constitute about 41% of the population due to their numbers increasing by about a million between 2010 and 2020. That increase is largely due to an influx of Black people moving into Georgia from other parts of the nation and the globe.
Lack of affordable housing, growing homelessness, the rising cost of food and lack of economic opportunity are among the top issues Black Georgians want addressed by their elected leaders.
The new voting maps also will impact Georgia’s congressional districts in ways that would affect Black voters and the legislators who represent them. The state Senate’s congressional map, for example, once again redrew U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath’s district. McBath is the Black Democrat who defeated former U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in a primary race last year before winning the general election to represent the 7th Congressional District. She previously served in the 6th Congressional District before Republicans redrew the territory to favor GOP candidates. That finalized map was one of the three Judge Jones has said illegally dilutes Black voting power.
Gov. Brian Kemp must sign all three new maps into law by Friday to comply with Jones’ combined ruling on a trio of lawsuits.
House Democrats concede that the GOP House map adds the new majority-Black districts Jones required, but they argue it also dilutes the power of two “majority-minority districts” in the state legislature in the north Atlanta metro area.
State Rep. Scott Holcomb’s District 81 and state Rep. Farooq Mughal’s 105th District are territories in which voters of color constitute a majority of the population, Democratic Party members said. State House Minority Leader James Beverly and other members of his party say GOP leaders drew a map that subtracts minority voters from these districts and adds white Republicans in their place.
Enacting such a map could help Republicans minimize gains Democrats likely would receive from the creation of five new majority-Black districts. The GOP’s goal is to protect its incumbents as well as its majority control of both state legislative chambers, according to Beverly.
The Democrat from Macon also argues that the GOP’s proposed map violates the Voting Rights Act in defiance of Jones’ combined ruling on the three lawsuits.
“Not only did you not comply with [Jones’] order, you broke the law because coalition majority-minority districts are protected,” Beverly said during a hearing on the state House floor on Friday. “You can’t say we complied and break the law. That’s not how America works. It’s certainly not how Georgia works, and it’s certainly not what Judge Jones ordered.”
Republicans contend Jones’ order only requires the state to create the required number of majority-Black districts and that their maps have done that. They suggested Democrats are complaining to advocate for maps that increase their party’s power in the legislature.
“We’re doing what [Jones] said to do,” state Sen. Bill Cowsert said Tuesday on the chamber floor.
Butler said the Senate map doesn’t create majority-Black districts in the metro Atlanta regions Jones targeted in his ruling, and she hopes he rejects them.
“The judge named the specific areas where the districts were to be created,” Butler said. “They did not comply.”
What will Judge Jones do?
There is no timeline for Jones to rule on the new redistricting maps, but political scientist Charles Bullock III said he expects a quick decision due to the ramifications for next year’s elections. And he thinks the Georgia maps are headed the way of Alabama’s.
Jones’ order says the state cannot fix the Voting Rights Act violations that exist in its current U.S. congressional map “by eliminating minority opportunity districts elsewhere in the plans,” Bullock noted. He pointed to McBath’s congressional seat as an example.
“That’s a minority district that did elect a minority member, and it’s been sliced and diced,” Bullock said of McBath’s District 7.
As for the state legislative districts, there’s a chance those get tossed by Jones as well, Bullock said. Republicans can argue they’ve created the required majority-Black districts, but their opposition can assert that was done while weakening influence in pre-existing, minority-opportunity districts.
“It’s up to the judge to decide which argument he finds to be more compelling,” Bullock said.
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