 100vw, 547px” data-recalc-dims=”1″/></p>
<p>With just four days left until the deadline for Georgia lawmakers to submit new voting plans to a federal judge, Republican and Democratic lawmakers traded accusations at a meeting in Atlanta about whether the Republican Party's plans will pass legal scrutiny.</p>
<p>Last month, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered the General Assembly to redraw Georgia's electoral maps, arguing that the state had diluted Black voting rights in violation of federal voting rights law.</p>
<p>On Friday, two days after lawmakers met for a 10-day special session called by Gov. Brian Kemp, the Republican-controlled House and Senate voted to approve the plans drawn up by special drafting committees, despite Democratic objections. The chambers shared the plans on Monday, giving their colleagues the opportunity to review and tweak their plans.</p>
<p>Republican Rep. Rob Leverett of Elberton, chairman of the redistricting and redistricting committee, said on the House floor Friday that the House plan is “fully consistent” with Jones' order to gain five more black-majority House districts and two more Black-majority districts in the Senate are intended to reflect the increase in Georgia's black population over the past decade.</p>
<p>Rep. Sam Park of Lawrenceville, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, disagreed.</p>
<p>He said the House Republican map proposes five new majority-black districts but leaves out two additional majority-minority districts, for a total of just three additional majority-minority districts.</p>
<p>This House proposal “violates the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, and we believe it probably violates the letter of the law as well,” Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook of Savannah said later.</p>
<p>The maps drawn by Republicans do not include additional Black representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Georgia's delegation consists of nine Republicans and five Democrats.</p>
<p>The boundaries of U.S. House District 1, the coastal Georgia seat currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter, remain unchanged, with the number of Black voters in the district still at 28.2%.</p>
<h3 class=)
As the court's deadline approaches, there appears to be little incentive for either side to bow, especially with members of the House and Senate all up for re-election next November.
Instead, lawmakers from both parties appear to be betting that the courts will do their job for them. In the case of the Democrats, this means that Jones considers the maps inadequate and appoints a special representative to the task. “It is a map that Judge Jones can and should reject,” Park said.
For Republicans, trusting the courts means trusting that the maps drawn by Jones and his special counsel will not withstand a challenge in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where conservative judges appointed by former President Donald Trump hold sway.
The Tide brings you news and observations from The Current staff.
Related
Story Type: News
Based on facts either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified by knowledgeable sources.
