Citing Callais, appeals court overturns Black voters’ redistricting win in Georgia

Black voters’ 2023 victory* blocking Georgia’s congressional and state legislative maps proved fleeting after the 11th Circuit sent the case back to a lower court to be reconsidered in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision gutting the Voting Rights Act provisions guaranteeing political representation for minority voters.

It’s the latest fallout from the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, which held that minority voters must essentially prove congressional maps eliminating majority-minority voting districts were racially motivated and not done merely for partisan political advantage.

A federal judge had struck down Georgia’s congressional map in October 2023, finding that state lawmakers violated Section 2 of the VRA by drawing district maps in such a way that “the political process is not equally open to Black voters.” 

“For example, in the past decade, all of Georgia’s population growth was attributable to the minority population, however, the number of majority-Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same,” the court concluded in its 2023 ruling. 

The judge ordered Georgia to add a second majority-Black congressional district. 

Now the district court must reconsider the case in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the 11th Circuit said.

“The appropriate response to such a significant change of law is to vacate and remand, so the district court may reconsider, in the first instance, whether Georgia’s redistricting plans violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act under the updated Callais framework,” the appellate court said.

The state in its brief to the 11th Circuit called the Callais ruling a “watershed” that “takes a sledgehammer” to Black voters’ legal victory.

Republican lawmakers in multiple Southern states rushed to draw new congressional maps after the Supreme Court decision, emboldened by President Donald Trump’s demand for new gerrymanders to improve Republicans’ odds of holding the House in November. 

In June, Georgia Republicans began a special session to redraw the state’s political maps for the 2028 elections. However, faced with ferocious pushback from Black protesters across the South, Georgia lawmakers backtracked just as the special session was getting underway. They abandoned — for the moment — the GOP plan to pass a new gerrymander.

But in court, Georgia has moved forward with its efforts to eliminate Black representation since the Callais ruling. 

It’s just one example of the backsliding occurring in GOP-controlled states in the wake of the Callais ruling. Last month, the 8th Circuit vacated a redistricting win for Native American voters fighting a years-long battle for better representation in North Dakota’s state government. 

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) is representing plaintiffs in one of the consolidated cases. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.