GA Senate committee adopts new redistricting plan while Braves fans celebrate
The vote took place after one day of public comments
On Friday, Braves fans from across North Georgia descended on Downtown Atlanta to celebrate the team’s first World Series victory in 26 years. But just a few blocks away, a committee of state legislators were meeting in a small room at the Georgia State Capitol to move forward with a plan to reshape state politics for the next decade.
The Senate Reapportionment & Redistricting Committee on Friday approved a new draft map of Georgia’s 56 state Senate districts. The vote fell right along party lines, with all 9 Republican members of the committee voting to approve the map and all 4 Democrats voting against it. The map now moves to the full Senate floor, where it could be brought up for a vote as early as next week.
The map can be viewed here.
The vote took place after the Republican-led committee allowed just one day of public comments on the proposed map. Democratic legislators and voting rights attorneys have decried the process as partisan and rushed.
Every 10 years, Georgia state legislators are tasked with redrawing the state’s political boundaries in order to account for population shifts reflected in the recent census. The party that controls state government often uses the grueling process to cement their grip on power, a tactic commonly referred to as “gerrymandering.”
The Republican-proposed map that was approved on Friday would preserve the party’s majority in the chamber: several Republican members who narrowly won re-election in previous cycles now find themselves representing more conservative constituencies. Despite the fact that Donald Trump did not win Georgia in 2020, the former President would have carried the median State Senate district by a margin of nearly 16 percentage points.
Democrats countered the majority’s proposal by introducing their own Senate redistricting plan. State Sen. Gloria Butler, a Democrat from Stone Mountain and the Senate Minority Leader, said that the Democratic-drawn map would keep communities together, create more majority-minority districts and expand the number of competitive seats in counties like Cobb and Gwinnett. Butler also attempted, unsuccessfully, to stall Friday’s vote on the Republican proposal.
Georgia Democrats have raised concerns about the timing of these proposed maps: the State Senate map that was approved on Friday was first made public on Tuesday, as most reporters were covering the results of various municipal elections such as the Atlanta Mayor’s race.
And Friday’s vote took place as Atlanta Braves fans were marching in the team’s World Series victory parade not too far from the Capitol. State Sen. Jen Jordan, a Democrat from Atlanta, described hearing “cheers, yells, and music” as she sat in the committee room.
But State Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Macon who chairs the Senate redistricting committee, argued that the maps were drawn after months of public hearings across the state (the committee held redistricting hearings over the summer, before official census data was released). Other Republican legislators argued that voters have been able to submit public comments to the committee’s website for several months.
Another Republican, State Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens, defended the process and argued that the maps are fair. He said that the map was drawn in compliance with federal voting rights laws, that each district is roughly equal in population and that his Republican colleagues attempted to minimize the number of county splits.
“These districts are compact,” Cowsert said on Friday, adding that there were no incumbent pairings on the new map.
The Georgia House redistricting committee, meanwhile, also met on Friday to begin the process of moving forward with the House redistricting proposal. Both Democratic and Republican-drawn maps were officially introduced in committee, though no votes were cast on either proposal. State Rep. Bonnie Rich (R-Suwanee), the chair of the House redistricting committee, has scheduled a hearing for both maps on Monday.
Would could be just days away from the first big vote of Georgia’s redistricting process.