Judge approves Republican-redrawn Georgia congressional and legislative maps
ATLANTA - A federal judge on Wednesday accepted new Georgia congressional and legislative voting districts that protect Republican partisan advantages, saying the creation of new majority-Black voting districts fixed illegal minority vote dilution that led him to order maps be redrawn.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, in three separate but similarly worded orders, rejected claims that the new maps didn't do enough to help Black voters. Jones said he couldn't interfere with legislative choices, even if Republicans moved to protect their power. The maps were redrawn in a recent special legislative session after Jones in October ruled that a prior set of maps illegally harmed Black voters.
Despite the judge saying Thursday the new maps complied with his ruling, Andrea Young, the executive director of the Georgia chapter of the ACLU, expressed doubt.
"We don’t think these districts really represent the spirit of Judge Jones' order," she told FOX 5. "It just doesn’t, in our opinion, fully reflect the opportunity the legislature had to draw maps that were representative of our very diverse state."
Meanwhile, COO Gabriel Sterling from the office of Georgia Secretary of State put it plainly: "They're wrong."
The approval of the maps sets the stage for them to be used in 2024's upcoming elections. They're likely to keep the same 9-5 Republican majority among Georgia's 14 congressional seats, while also retaining GOP majorities in the state Senate and House.
Federal judge scrutinizing redrawn district maps
A federal judge in Atlanta is taking a close look at Georgia’s redrawn political district maps approved by state lawmakers this month. The judge ordered the do-over because he said the old ones violated the voting rights act and were racially discriminatory.
The congressional map creates a new majority-Black district in parts of Fulton, Douglas, Cobb and Fayette counties on Atlanta’s west side. But instead of targeting a Republican, it shifts McBath’s current majority nonwhite district in suburban Gwinnett and Fulton counties into a district tailored for current Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, stretching from Atlanta’s northern suburbs into its heavily Republican northern mountains.
U.S. Representative Lucy McBath (Supplied)
It’s the second time in two years that Republicans have targeted McBath, a gun control activist. McBath, who is Black, initially won election in a majority-white district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. Georgia Republicans in 2021 took that district, once represented by Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and drew it into much more Republican territory. At the same time, they made another district more Democratic. McBath jumped into that district and beat Democratic incumbent Carolyn Bordeaux in a 2022 primary.
McBath has vowed to stay in the House. "I won't let Republicans decide when my time in Congress is over," she wrote in a Thursday fundraising email. But that means she's likely to have to seek to run in a new district for the second election in a row, after Republicans drew her out of the district she originally won.
The ACLU is looking into whether they will appeal the decision.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.