Georgia won’t redraw congressional maps after Democratic sweep

Plans to redraw Georgia’s congressional district lines at President Donald Trump’s behest were scuttled by the historic Democratic wins across the state in Tuesday’s midterms.

“I will not be calling a special session of the Georgia General Assembly in order to curtail executive branch powers or debate redistricting changes,” Gov. Brian Kemp (R) said in a statement. “The voters of our state have spoken. As long as I’m governor, we will always respect the results of secure, accessible, and fair elections, and also abide by the laws and constitution of our state.”

The statement came after Democrats recorded wins across Georgia at all levels, including the election of the nation’s first Black woman governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Democrats also look likely to flip the state House of Representatives.

Across the South, Black voters have turned out at high rates, angered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Callais decision, gutting the Voting Rights Act and making it much easier for Southern states to redraw district lines to disempower Black voters. 

In the wake of Callais, Georgia Republicans, including Kemp, began advocating for a new redistricting session. 

Other Southern states redrew their congressional maps after Callais to get rid of minority districts. This was also done to advantage Republican candidates in the midterms – a plan that ended up not working out for them.

But Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns decided in June to take redistricting off the menu after Black political leaders and civil rights activists protested.

“Since this process has the potential to impact every voter, it deserves the same responsible, fact-driven approach that guides every policy we consider as lawmakers, especially as we seek to understand the full implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais,” Burns wrote in a letter to Kemp. 

Still, some in the GOP hoped Kemp might call a special redistricting session before he left office in January, if Lance Bottoms won the gubernatorial race. The idea was to have lawmakers redraw the state’s congressional map before a new governor would have the chance to veto it. 

But Tuesday night’s resounding anti-GOP statement from voters appears to have killed off the political will for the effort.