New congressional map to be unveiled as legislative maps await floor votes
Special redistricting session to resume Friday
Republican state senate leaders on Friday are expected to unveil a new congressional map.
A new senate bill, SB 3EX, was filed this week as the “Georgia Congressional Redistricting Act of 2023,” meaning that it will be used as a legislation vehicle for a new map of the Peach State’s 14 congressional districts.
Republicans had gained a congressional seat in Georgia during the 2022 midterms after state lawmakers reconfigured the boundaries of two suburban districts in the Atlanta area that had become increasingly competitive by 2020.
The new district lines made one of those districts heavily white and solidly Republican, while the other became a diverse suburban district that favors Democrats.
But U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in October found that the congressional map, along with the state legislative maps, weakened the voting power of Black Georgians. Lawmakers are meeting in a special session this week to draw new maps, and Judge Jones is urging them to create a new majority-Black district in Atlanta’s western suburbs.
Because African-Americans in the south tend to vote for Democrats in large numbers, the party is hoping to pick up a seat in Congress when all is said and done.
But their gains on the new maps so far have been minimal. The state House and Senate redistricting committees have each approved new maps along party lines for their respective chambers, with full votes expected as early as Friday. The Republican-drawn plans increase the number of majority-Black districts by dismantling predominately white ones that are currently represented by Democrats, a configuration that would maintain each chamber’s current partisan makeup.
Despite Georgia being a national battleground with a surging minority population, Republicans hold a combined 57 percent of the seats in the state legislature, along with nine of the state’s 14 congressional seats.
Nevertheless, Republican leaders say that they plan to comply with the judge’s order to create a new majority-Black congressional district in metro Atlanta. This could mean that at least one Republican congressman from North Georgia might find themself in a more competitive race for re-election next year.
But it will be up to Judge Jones to determine whether or not mapmakers at the Gold Dome followed his guidelines. The state is still appealing to try and block any new maps from taking effect, but Republicans have conceded that a ruling is unlikely to come before the 2024 election.
The legislature will resume its special session Friday morning.