Kemp signs controversial local redistricting plans into law
Democrats claim maps violate local control
Gov. Brian Kemp signed several Republican-crafted county redistricting plans this week over the objections of rivals who claim that the maps violate local control.
In the past, county and local maps were presented by county government officials and rubber-stamped by the legislature. But for many of these maps, Republican legislators introduced new plans as state legislation with little input from their Democratic counterparts in each county.
In Gwinnett County, which recently elected an all-Democratic county commission, the Governor signed a map that appears to create a nearly majority-white district in the northern part of the county. The map can be seen above to the right.
Many Gwinnett officials opposed the map. Commission chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson urged Gov. Kemp to veto the map and raised questions about transparency from state lawmakers during this process.
But State Rep. Bonnie Rich, a Suwanee Republican and the architect of the Gwinnett proposal, has fired back at opponents who are claiming that she is trying to give white Republicans a voice in government in the state’s most diverse county.
Some Democrats have gone as far as to say that she is embracing “white nationalism.” Rich responded by saying that she was tired of the “ugly and baseless name-calling.”
“We now have a County Commission map that reflects the various communities of interest in Gwinnett County, none to the exclusion of the other,” Rich said of the map. It passed both the House and the Senate in party-line votes.
Kemp also signed a bill that redraws commission boundaries in his home county. The new commission boundaries in Athens-Clarke County would draw three commissioners out of their districts, preventing them from running for re-election in 2022.
Unlike the Gwinnett plans, which were introduced as state legislation, the Athens-Clarke County bills followed the traditional local redistricting process because the county’s delegation comprises mostly of Republicans.
But many local officials in the liberal college town opposed the new maps, saying that many of the changes were unnecessary. State Rep. Spencer Frye, the lone Democratic lawmaker from Athens, presented his own redistricting proposal — which was never brought up for a vote in the Republican-controlled legislature.
Several other local redistricting bills are making their way through the Gold Dome: Republican lawmakers are leading a similar effort to redraw commission and school board boundaries in Cobb and Augusta-Richmond counties.
Republicans are also pushing a bill to make Gwinnett County school board elections nonpartisan and to move those elections from the November general election to the May primary. Democratic critics say that this move could lead to lower and less diverse turnout in Gwinnett school board races.
Kemp’s office declined to comment on this legislation.
However, he did sign a bipartisan proposal to redraw the county’s school board boundaries.