U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones issued two rulings that side with Georgia Republicans, preserving their 9-5 majority in Congress and their legislative majority inside the Georgia State Capitol. In both rulings, Judge Jones said the General Assembly “fully complied” with his order when the Republicans drew up the new maps.
Jones also ruled the old maps illegally diluted the voting power of Black Georgians, but the new maps submitted by Georgia Republicans do follow his order. Moreover, the new Congressional map includes five congressional districts where Black voters made up a majority or near-majority, an increase from the previous four.
“The Court finds that the General Assembly fully complied with this Court’s order requiring the creation of a majority-Black congressional district,” Jones wrote in his order.
A major point of contention was the fact Judge Jones’ order split up a majority-minority district in Gwinnett County, which was a major point of contention during the seven-day special session. It was described as a “coalition district” with a group of Black, Latino, and AAPI voters in Georgia’s most populous county.
“This Court has made no finding that Black voters in Georgia politically join with another minority group or groups and that white voters vote as a bloc to defeat the candidate of choice of that minority coalition,” Jones wrote.
“We’re told, ‘well, no, it really doesn’t comply because of this language about minority opportunity districts,’” said House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairman Rob Leverett, a Republican from Elberton, during the debate on December 7th. “Well, I agree it is meaningful language, but it does not have the meaning that my friends across the aisle ascribe to it … The term gets used loosely in different contexts. In the context of this case, the minority that was being discussed – whose rights were trying to be vindicated – were Black voters.”
Georgia Democrats expressed their shock and disappointment over what they described as gerrymandering.
“Remember, the Republican Senate maps empowered only 3,000 Black voters in the affected area in which Judge Jones identified Voting Rights Act violations,” said the Senate Minority Leader, State Sen. Gloria Butler, a Democrat from Stone Mountain. “Conversely, our proposal empowered over 100,000 Black voters. The Congressional and House maps had similar problems. The Republican maps are an ongoing Voting Rights Act violation. Period. While we respect Judge Jones’ decision, we will continue fighting to deliver Georgians the fair maps they deserve. We must end the cycle of partisan gerrymandering that allows politicians to choose their voters and prevents voters from choosing their representatives.”
U.S. Representative Lucy McBath, who rose to national prominence after her son, Jordan Davis, was killed on November 2012 in Jacksonville over an argument about loud music. McBath successfully ran for Congress in 2018 in the Sixth Congressional District. In 2022, McBath was drawn out of the Sixth and into the Seventh Congressional District. Later in the year, she would take on Carolyn Bourdeaux and win the primary. Now, based on Judge Jones’s ruling, McBath announced she will run in the redrawn Sixth. However, she voiced her displeasure with the ruling in a written statement:
“After my son Jordan was ripped away from me by senseless gun violence, I promised him that I would do everything in my power to prevent our family’s tragedy from happening to any other. I refuse to allow an extremist few Republicans decide when my work in Congress is finished. I hope that the judicial system will not allow the state legislature to suppress the will of Georgia voters. However, if the maps passed by the state legislature stand for the 2024 election cycle, I will be running for re-election to Congress in GA-06 because too much is at stake to stand down.”
Under the new plan, Georgia’s U.S. Seventh Congressional District will wholly contain Dawson, Forsyth and Lumpkin Counties while including portions of North Fulton, western Hall, and eastern Cherokee Counties.
The new map now labels the Sixth District as a majority-Black district in western metro Atlanta, which “falls squarely” in the region of the state where the court found Black voter dilution in the previous map, according to Jones’s ruling. However, it does carve out portions of Atlanta’s westside, Southwest Atlanta, MLK, Adamsville and portions of the Cascade neighborhood to create the new Sixth district. Those areas were part of the Fifth Congressional District, represented by U.S. Congresswoman Nikema Williams.
“I’m disappointed by today’s court ruling that allows Georgia Republicans to blatantly divide the Black vote in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District and pass it off as a “new” Black district,” said U.S. Congresswoman Nikema Williams. “Georgia Republicans have a long history of voter disenfranchisement and they’re creating a new chapter of it by tearing apart Altanta’s historic Black political power in gerrymandering the Fifth District. This is yet another example of extreme Republicans threatening our democracy and we must stand united against the extremism. The voters of the #FightingFifth will have the last say.”
Observers fully expect an appeal to be filed. However, the maps must be finalized by Jan. 29, when Georgia will start creating the ballots for the primaries.
The battle over redistricting and reapportionment in Georgia follows the fights in Alabama, North Carolina and South Carolina which saw Republicans leverage the Conservative-leaning United States Supreme Court and pass redistricting maps that cobbled majority-Black and ethnic minority districts into areas where it would prove advantageous for the right-wing for upcoming elections this decade.