Judge Approves New Georgia Voting District Maps that Give Edge to GOP

State Sen. Bo Hatchett (R-Cornelia) speaks regarding redistricting bill HB 1EX during the special legislative session at the Capitol in Atlanta on Dec. 5, 2023. Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

A federal judge in Georgia has approved new Republican-drawn congressional maps, delivering a win to state’s GOP as it seeks to keep its majority while rejecting claims in three separate lawsuits that the redrawn maps don’t do enough to help black voters.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones said in similarly worded orders that the creation of new majority-black voting districts solved the problem of illegal minority vote dilution that led the judge to order the maps redrawn in the first place.

“The Court finds that the General Assembly fully complied with this Court’s order requiring the creation of Black-majority districts in the regions of the State where vote dilution was found,” Judge Jones wrote in each of three orders filed on Dec. 28 at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

The orders (and cases) in question are: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity v. Brad Raffensperger, Coakley Pendergrass v. Brad Raffensperger, and Annie Lois Grant v. Brad Raffensperger.

The maps were redrawn in a special legislative session after Judge Jones, an appointee of President Barack Obama, ruled that maps drawn in 2021 illegally diluted the votes of black voters.

While the new maps add a number of black-majority districts, they also favor Republicans, who hold a majority in Georgia’s General Assembly.

More Details

As ordered by the judge in a 516-page order in October, the new maps add black-majority districts, including one in Congress, and a total of seven in the Georgia state House and Senate.

However, in some Democrat-held districts that don’t have black majorities, Republicans redrew the maps in ways that give them an electoral advantage.

The judge noted in all three orders that committee and floor debate transcripts “make clear” that the GOP-controlled General Assembly redrew maps “in a manner that politically protected the majority party (i.e., the Republican Party) as much as possible.”

However, the judge noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has expressly stated that federal judges have no right to reallocate power between political parties and so he overruled the plaintiffs’ objections and approved the new maps.

One of the consequences of the decision was the virtual elimination of the current minority-heavy 7th U.S. Congressional District, which is represented by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, a Democrat.

Ms. McBath reacted to the ruling in a post on X and in a statement to media outlets, in which she vowed to challenge the court’s decision—or run for re-election in a different district.

“A Court just ruled in favor of GOP maps that blatantly target me. But I’m not going anywhere. I refuse to allow an extremist few decide when my work in Congress is complete,” she said in the post, in which she called for donations to “send me back to Congress.”

She told several media outlets that if Judge Jones’s decision isn’t overturned on appeal, she will seek reelection in the new 6th Congressional District in Georgia’s Fulton, Cobb, Douglas, and Fayette counties.

Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., speaks during a rally near Capitol Hill in Washington, on June 8, 2022. AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, called the ruling a “validation of what we put forward” in a statement to The Associated Press.

By contrast, Georgia state Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, a Democrat, issued a statement “strongly” disagreeing with the decision.

“The Republican maps discriminate against Black voters and do not allow those voters to elect candidates of their choice,” she said.

Redistricting In Focus

Redrawing of districts this year was among a number of redistricting actions that came after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision in June affirmed a district court’s ruling that Alabama’s congressional map drawn in 2021 likely violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race.

The Supreme Court ruled that the district court was correct to require Alabama to redraw its congressional map to include an additional majority-black district while rejecting Alabama’s “race-neutral” approach to Section 2 litigation, essentially affirming that race can be considered in the redistricting process.

However, a federal appeals court ruled in November to prohibit private citizens and entities from filing lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, barring so-called “private right of action” in relation to Section 2 lawsuits in the seven states under the appeals court’s jurisdiction.

The 8th circuit appeals court’s ruling drew mixed reactions, with some conservatives taking to X to call for the abolishment of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act entirely and some arguing that the provision is applied to the benefit of every race except whites.

Others, like the left-leaning Democracy Docket, denounced the decision as “catastrophic.”

There are numerous legal challenges across the country to congressional district maps, including Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah.