GA GOP again targets Rep. McBath in redistricting
Fate of GA maps likely to be decided by courts, analyst says
For the second time in two years, Georgia Republican state lawmakers are again targeting Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath during redistricting. It’s the latest development in a process that will ultimately be decided by courts.
McBath currently represents District 7, which is based almost entirely within Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s northeastern suburbs. But a new congressional map unveiled Friday would again significantly alter the boundaries of her district. If the map is passed, McBath — who is seen as a possible candidate for higher office in the coming years, will be spending another campaign season introducing herself to voters whom she has never represented.
McBath has been a top target ever since her victory in 2018 over Republican Karen Handel. Centering her campaign around gun control and healthcare, the Marietta Democrat and first-time candidate scored an upset victory in Georgia’s 6th district, a suburban Atlanta district that for decades had been a launching pad for prominent Georgia Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Johnny Isakson.
Republicans invested heavily in winning back the seat in 2020, but a rematch with Handel ended in McBath being comfortably re-elected.
The next year, state lawmakers met in a special session to redraw political maps to account for population changes, just as they do at the start of every decade. But the seemingly routine process is highly political, with the majority party oftentimes seeking to maximize their advantages through a tactic called gerrymandering.
It was widely known that Republicans had their sights set on winning back the 6th district when they were redrawing the lines. The legislature passed a map that shifted the 6th from Atlanta’s immediate northern suburbs to exurban and rural counties in North Georgia, rendering it unwinnable for a Democratic candidate.
The new 6th skewed so heavily Republican that Rep. McBath switched districts and campaigned for re-election in neighboring District 7, which had become heavily Democratic on the new map. This put her on a collision course with fellow Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in what was an awkward contest between two Democratic rising stars.
McBath defeated Bourdeaux in the primary and coasted to re-election in November 2022. While over in District 6, the new lines helped Republican Rich McCormick easily capture the seat and expand his party’s dominance in Georgia’s 14-member congressional contingent.
But a federal judge earlier this fall found that the 2021 congressional and legislative maps were drawn to dilute the voting strength of Black Georgians. State lawmakers have been instructed to draw a new map that includes an additional majority-Black congressional district.
Republicans on Friday proposed a new congressional map that adds a majority-Black district in Atlanta’s western suburbs while dividing Gwinnett among four districts.
The map would also insulate all Republican incumbents. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Rome) would no longer represent heavily-Black communities in Southwest Cobb County. Residents of Powder Springs and Austell were outraged in 2021 when they learned that they were now residents of Greene’s solidly Republican Northwest Georgia district.
District 7 on the proposed map largely resembles McCormick’s current District 6. The freshman congressman has said that he plans to run for re-election no matter how the lines end up being drawn.
The proposal would maintain the current breakdown of nine Republicans and five Democrats. But mapmakers at the Gold Dome might have trouble defending the map in court. In his order, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones cautioned lawmakers against creating a new majority-Black district at the expense of existing districts where minority communities make up a majority of voters.
“The State cannot remedy the Section 2 violations described herein by eliminating minority opportunity districts elsewhere in the plans.”
African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans combined account for as many as 2 in 3 voters in the current District 7.
While lawmakers eliminated several predominately white districts on the legislative maps to increase the number of Black districts, they did not do so on the congressional map. The proposed map has nine majority-white congressional districts — the same number as the current map.
But Republicans believe that the map follows Judge Jones’ order. Statehouse Speaker Jon Burns has called the new plan “fair” and says he looks forward to taking it up next week.
“This map meets the promise we made when this process began: It fully complies with the judge’s order while also following Georgia’s traditional redistricting principles,” the powerful Republican said.
The proposed map opens up a new chapter in a legal battle that has been playing out for more than two years and threatens to drag into the 2024 election cycle. Once the maps are passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, it will then be up to Judge Jones to determine whether or not they follow his guidelines. He has said that he will draw the maps himself if he finds that state lawmakers failed to comply with his order.
Dave Wasserman, the senior editor and election analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, says that he expects the judge to reject this proposed map. But he also suggests that Republicans might be trying to run out the clock.
If Judge Jones rejects the map, Wasserman says, “the question becomes whether Republicans can succeed on appeal or be granted a stay by the Supreme Court to punt the entire question until after 2024.”
As for McBath, her campaign says that she will wait for a decision from Judge Jones before announcing her next steps.
“Regardless, Congresswoman McBath refuses to let an extremist few in the state legislature determine when her time serving Georgians in Congress is done,” campaign manager Jake Orvis said.