Georgia’s Republican governor calls for special session to redraw electoral maps | Georgia
The Republican governor of Georgia has called a special session next month to redraw election maps, the last southern state to initiate new mapmaking after the U.S. supreme court struck down the Voting Rights Act.
Brian Kemp announced Special session will start on Wednesday, June 17th. The focus will be on “enacting, revising, repealing, or modifying” district boundaries for the state legislature and congressional district in light of the high court’s decision in Louisiana v Callais.
Kemp, whose term ends next January, has said he will not redraw the state’s boundaries for this year’s elections. The state’s primary election will be held next Tuesday. Instead, the redistricting special session will try to lock in Republican-leaning maps while the party still holds power in the legislature and governor’s office.
Republicans may try to unseat Democratic representative Sanford Bishop, who has been a black member of Congress since 1993. noted. Other regions may face the risk of a “dummy” situation, where a less clear-cut and aggressive retrenchment backfires on the majority party.
Raphael Warnock, a Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia, said of the push for new maps: “I’m going to fight this with everything I’ve got.
“There is an extreme movement in this country that will stop at nothing to stay in power, even if it means stripping millions of people of their representation,” Warnock said. he wrote on Twitter.
The high court ruled in April that the districts Louisiana drew under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prevents racial discrimination in voting, were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The court’s decision effectively undermines the ability of Blacks and minorities to vote; This is a major upheaval in civil rights law.
Immediately after the decision, some states took action to redraw their maps. Louisiana is in the middle of an ongoing election, tens of thousands Multiple ballot measures have already been cast seeking to draw maps that would eliminate a majority-black district around Baton Rouge. Alabama won approval from the high court to use a map previously deemed discriminatory against Black voters. Tennessee authorized new maps that got rid of the state’s only majority-black Democratic congressional district.
But South Carolina defied Trump’s pressure to redraw its maps and voted against his plan to draw new maps. Meanwhile, Virginia voters approved a ballot measure for more Democratic-leaning districts, but the state’s supreme court rejected the map, so the state is now appealing to the U.S. supreme court to allow the map to be used.
Racist gerrymandering frenzy further inflames already uneasy public mid-decade redistricting This means that many voters will be faced with new districts in this year’s elections; this is a historical rarity, except for decennial census redistricting.
Redistricting usually occurs every 10 years after the U.S. census. In some states, independent commissions oversee mapmaking, while in others it is a highly partisan process.
But starting last year, a number of states began pivoting to new districts after Trump pressured Republican-led states to redraw maps to create seats more favorable to their party in the House, given the losses the GOP expected to face in this year’s midterm elections. Some Democratic-led states responded in kind, redrafting their maps to favor their side.
Georgia’s special legislative session will also include addressing issues related to a new law banning QR codes on ballots that goes into effect in July.
