Court Tosses Georgia District Maps, Orders Rewrite for 2024

ATLANTA — A federal judge tossed out Georgia’s congressional and state legislative district maps on Thursday, ordering that they be redrawn in time for use in the 2024 election.

In an order that ran to 516 pages, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones said while the state had made “great strides” toward equality in voting since the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, the maps drafted by Republican lawmakers after the last census nevertheless violated the act by diluting the voting power of Black voters.

He ordered the lawmakers to redraw the maps and submit them to the court by Dec. 8. 

In the underlying case, a group of civil rights and religious groups challenged the maps on the grounds they impermissibly pushed thousands of the Black voters into districts in which they have no way of electing a candidate of their choice.

The state is expected to appeal the decision.

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Alabama to redraw its congressional district map, directing it to create a second majority-Black district in a similar case. 

Such a rewrite in Georgia could result in the state garnering a sixth congressional district in the metro Atlanta area, as Georgia’s Black population grew by about 484,000 people between 2010 and 2020, while the state’s White population declined. 

“This is a significant step toward equal representation for all voters, especially Black voters in Georgia, and yet another example of the necessity of the critical protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act,” said former Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., in a written statement. 

Now chair of the National Redistricting Foundation, Holder added, “These maps are textbook violations of Section 2 and the court has fairly applied the law as it is written to protect the equal rights of citizens and to stop blatant attempts to diminish those rights. 

“Gerrymandering has denied Black Georgia voters fair representation — and that will soon change. We fight on in Georgia and everywhere where American democracy is under attack,” he concluded.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue