Federal judge strikes down Georgia voting maps
Republicans in Georgia violated a landmark civil rights law in drawing voting maps that diluted the power of Black voters, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled Thursday, ordering that new maps must be drawn in time for the 2024 elections.
Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia demanded that the state’s legislature move swiftly to draw new maps that provide an equitable level of representation for Black residents, who make up more than one-third of the state’s population.
In the ruling, Jones wrote that the court “will not allow another election cycle on redistricting plans” that had been found to be unlawful.
“Georgia has made great strides since 1965 towards equality in voting,” Jones wrote, referring to a troubled history of racism and disregard for voting and civil rights. “However, the evidence before this court shows that Georgia has not reached the point where the political process has equal openness and equal opportunity for everyone.”
Georgia is one of several Southern states where Republicans are defending congressional maps that federal judges have said appear to discriminate against Black voters.
The challenges to these maps were invigorated by a Supreme Court ruling in June that found that race could play a role in redistricting — a surprise decision that upheld the key remaining tenet of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a central legislative achievement of the civil rights movement that has otherwise been largely gutted by the court’s conservative majority in recent years.
Jones set a deadline of Dec. 8 for the state legislature to create new maps. The timeline, he wrote, ensures that “if an acceptable remedy is not produced, there will be time for the court to fashion one.”
As part of the regular redistricting process that happens each decade after the census, Georgia Republicans had sought to water down Democratic influence by separating key blocs of voters into different districts.
Two predominantly Black suburbs, for example, were moved out of a district represented by Rep. David Scott, a Black Democrat, and into that of hardline Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But in doing so, Jones found that Georgia had violated the Voting Rights Act by undercutting the power of Black voters in the state’s congressional map and its division of statehouse districts.
The decision in Georgia could be appealed. Republicans in other states have sought to draw out litigation and avoid new maps that are less politically favorable to their incumbents.