- A special session to redraw Georgia’s federal and state legislative maps will likely end Thursday after a state House committee advanced a Republican-favored congressional map.
- The new congressional map creates a new Black-majority district by rearranging Democratic voting hubs in the Atlanta metropolitan area without disturbing the 9-5 majority held in the state’s current congressional delegation.
- “Well, I’m optimistic or cautiously optimistic that we’ve done what the judge wants because we’ve complied with the text of his order,” House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairman Rob Leverett, a Republican, told the press.
A Georgia special session to redraw congressional and legislative voting district maps is likely to end Thursday after a House committee on Wednesday advanced a Republican-favored congressional map that targets Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath’s current district.
However, the wrangling is unlikely to end there, with those who brought the challenges that overturned the current maps likely to argue in court that Georgia’s Republican-controlled General Assembly has violated the federal court order that directed them to produce new maps.
The House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee, with little debate, voted 9-4 on Wednesday to send the congressional map to the full House for a vote. The plan, which passed the state Senate 33-22 on Tuesday, seeks a wholesale reconfiguration of a suburban Atlanta district now represented by McBath.
GEORGIA REPUBLICANS PUSH FORWARD WITH REDISTRICTING PLANS BY ADVANCING NEW LEGISLATIVE MAPS
Lawmakers were called into special session after U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled in October that Georgia’s congressional, state Senate and state House maps violate federal law by diluting Black voting power. Jones mandated Black majorities in one additional congressional district, two additional state Senate districts and five additional state House districts. Jones instructed lawmakers to create the new…
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