The Republican-dominated Georgia House of Representatives passed their version of their political maps along party lines, 98-71, ending their court-ordered special session. Instead of awaiting Governor Brian Kemp’s signature, these maps now await the signature of the U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones on Dec. 20th.
Jones’s order mandated the creation of a new majority-Black voting district in Atlanta’s western suburbs, creating a new Sixth Congressional District.
The controversy surrounding these maps can be found in Gwinnett County. The Republican-proposed maps will draw out current U.S. Representative Lucy McBath, who currently represents Georgia’s U.S. Seventh Congressional District. 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.
“Those districts inside the perimeter naturally moved into my area of Gwinnett County and also created the impact which moved district seven north; the map does not use the Voting Rights Act to achieve political aims,” said House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairman Rob Leverett, a Republican from Elberton. “It maintains the partisan balance this body previously enacted just two years ago, while fully complying with Judge Jones’ order, and we know that the Voting Rights Act does not protect officials. It protects voters. It protects the rights of voters and this plan does just that.”
The Senate passed these maps along party lines 33-22 on Tuesday. The Democrats’ version of the new congressional maps would have seen a 8R-6D split. It was rejected in the Senate on party lines.
Throughout the Special Session, Georgia Democrats argued Jones’ ruling involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must protect districts made up of coalitions of nonwhite voters, specifically the growing majority-minority areas within Gwinnett County.
Minority Leader James Beverly said the Republicans “blatantly and intentionally defying the federal court’s order” while finding the districts in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“The 11th circuit court of appeals which covers Georgia, Alabama, and Florida has long recognized that section two of the Voting Rights Act protects minority opportunity districts like the one in Gwinnett,” said Beverly, a Democrat from Macon. “The leading case is the Concerned Citizens of Hardee county versus Hardee County Board of Commissioners where the 11th circuit, the same circuit, recognized that the Voting Rights Act protects districts like the one in Gwinnett in which Black, Hispanic and Asian voters vote cohesively as a political coalition, and by doing so can elect candidates of their choice.”
“These Republican maps for Congress, for the State Senate and House, they are not great,” added Georgia State Rep. Sam Park, a Democrat from Lawrenceville. “They are not just and they certainly are not fair to Georgia voters, especially for Black voters and voters of color, whose freedom to elect their candidate of choice is being attacked and undermined.”
The Republicans countered the Democrats’ by claiming their maps almost match the Judge Jones’s ruling with their proposed district plan. Plus, they believed Jones’ order only protects majority-Black districts.
“We’re told, ‘well, no, it really doesn’t comply because of this language about minority opportunity districts,’” Leverett said. “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.”
Meanwhile, McBath, who has drawn the ire of Georgia Republicans, has not been fazed by the redistricting and reapportionment fight. In a statement, she labled their actions as ‘extreme.’
“I will look to the decision from the judge on these maps in the coming weeks,” McBath said. “Regardless, I will not let an extremist portion of the state legislature decide when my time serving the people of Georgia is through. I will come back to Washington,” she said in a statement following the passage of the maps.”