"Buckle up": Georgia's lawmakers enter uncharted territory ahead of redistricting ruling
Redistricting trial concluded in Atlanta Thursday
Just two years ago Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was on a glide path to a long tenure in Congress after state lawmakers used the mapmaking process to make the 6th congressional district more conservative.
But he is now one of several Georgia lawmakers facing an uncertain future as the state braces for a ruling in a blockbuster gerrymandering case.
A federal trial in Atlanta over the boundaries of Georgia’s voting districts concluded Thursday. And it has the chance to set off a cascade effect in state politics not seen in decades.
“This is a very important case,” said U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, who is hearing the case and is expected to rule in the coming weeks. “My decision is going to have a big effect on a lot of people.”
McCormick is well aware of the threats posed to him by these lawsuits. He recently sent out a fundraising pitch warning supporters that Democrats are “pulling out all the stops” to defeat him at the ballot box.
The Democratic field to challenge McCormick is also starting to take shape, with Cobb County Commissioner Jerica Richardson launching a bid Thursday.
But If Judge Jones rules that the state’s Republican-drawn congressional and statehouse maps infringe upon the rights of Black Georgians, it could lead to a new set of maps that could leave McCormick and several state lawmakers without a district to run for next year.
It could also lead to a crowded field of Democrats running in District 6. State Sen. Josh McLaurin (D-Atlanta) is confirmed to be weighing a bid if the district is restored similarly to its previous iteration. And U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, who ran in a different district after redistricting, still lives in the 6th district.
State legislators are tasked with drawing new political maps at the dawn of every decade to account for population shifts. Oftentimes, however, the party with the majority passes maps that benefit their own candidates’ interests and put political minorities at a disadvantage. This tactic, commonly referred to as “gerrymandering,” is as old as the country itself.
In 2021, the Georgia legislature’s Republican majority passed redistricting maps that helped McCormick, an emergency room physician from Suwanee, easily win the suburban 6th district back from Democrats by replacing diverse voters in DeKalb and Fulton Counties with whiter ones in counties like Forsyth and Cherokee.
The new maps also cemented Republicans’ increasingly fragile statehouse majorities all by reducing the nonwhite percentages in several competitive districts, plaintiffs say.
Civil rights groups sued the state almost as soon as the maps were signed by Gov. Brian Kemp alleging that voters of color are at an unfair disadvantage in terms of representation as a result of the new maps. Lawyers for the state argued in court this week that race is an outdated metric to use when predicting voting patterns, even though white voters in the Deep South still vote heavily for Republican candidates and Black voters vote heavily for Democrats.
Now after two long and grueling years, Judge Jones could be just weeks away from a ruling that could determine the balance of power both on Capitol Hill and at the Gold Dome. Jones, an Obama-era judicial pick, has previously suggested that the maps may be unconstitutional.
He had put the case on hold and allowed the current maps to be used in 2022, citing worries about making major changes so close to an election. Additionally, a similar racial gerrymandering case out of neighboring Alabama was being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
It is widely believed that Judge Jones will side with the plaintiffs and block the 2021 Republican-drawn maps from being used in 2024. What happens after that?
Nobody knows.
Because there are a number of ways that the judge could rule, and it is not certain who will be drawing the new maps.
Republicans and even some Democrats would certainly prefer it if Judge Jones gave the legislature the chance to draw new maps. Because if he refers the matter to an outside party — or a special master, it is unlikely that they will adhere to the legislature’s residency requirements, which could put several incumbents at risk.
In Georgia, state lawmakers and candidates are required to reside within their district for one full year, or else they are ineligible to run. Put another way, if you have not been a resident of your district since November of the year before the election, you will not be allowed to run in that district.
There are fewer residency requirements to run for Congress.
Erick Allen, the chairman of the Cobb County Democratic Committee and a former state lawmaker, warns that a special master might not be generous to incumbents.
“We have no idea how this is going to end, but if the judge orders new maps for congressional and the legislature, it is going to be a very wild ride. You may have incumbents running against incumbents in 2024 as well as some current legislators possibly not being able to move or relocate into a new district.”
“Buckle up,” concluded Allen.
If the maps are struck down, most of the changes will likely be in the metro Atlanta area because that is where most of the districts named in the lawsuit are located.
John Barrow, a former Democratic U.S. congressman, believes that things are much more polarized now than when he was in office — which might not be good for some lawmakers.
Being a white Democrat from a rural area, Barrow was a frequent target for defeat by Republican state legislators, who drew his home out of his district twice over his five-term tenure in Congress. But as he reminds us, no two situations are the same.
“Well, the situation is a little different when it comes to Congressional races as compared to state legislative races, and that’s because there are no minimum residency requirements in Congressional races. With the voters being as polarized as they are these days, it’s more important to voters that they know what they are getting than it is to know where their candidates live. Especially since voters hardly know where their districts begin and end — they keep changing every decade. Or, as in my case, more than once a decade.”
Barrow, who lost re-election in 2014, went on to suggest that it was easier for him to maintain a relationship with voters in his district because of its largely rural composition. He says this might be harder to do for lawmakers in metro Atlanta because the districts are geographically smaller.
“With Congressional districts as small as they are in the metro Atlanta area, and voters not having any long-term connection with their Congressional district boundaries, they’re going to vote on the party more than where in the ever-shifting districts their homes happen to be in,” Barrow said.
Additionally, the former Congressman said that the fallout in the legislature might be even more dramatic because of the residency requirement. He says that this gives the Republican majority the chance to get rid of whoever they want. “Sometimes this can be one of their own that they don’t like or are willing to sacrifice in order to ‘get’ someone on the other side someplace else, but usually they ‘pair’ a couple of the minority members in the same new district. In which case only one of them can come out alive.”
As Judge Jones prepares to announce his monumental ruling, Georgia’s lawmakers are now finding themselves in rather unfamiliar territory.
Gerrymandering is hardly a new phenomenon. But there are few instances as a state that we can look back on and say that just about all levers of power were rattled by a redistricting ruling.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that Georgia is not the only state in court over district maps. About a dozen congressional districts across six states are on the verge of being redrawn, which could significantly alter the battlefield in the fight for control of Congress.
Very interesting "buckle up", indeed. Vote blue.