ATLANTA – A lawyer for the state of Georgia Thursday defended congressional and legislative maps the Republican-controlled General Assembly drew in 2023 in a lawsuit charging the new districts violate the Voting Rights Act.
Georgians have elected Republican majorities in the state legislature and Georgia’s congressional delegation based on party affiliation rather than race, Georgia Solicitor General Stephen Petrany argued before the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. GOP candidates have been winning their elections whether they are Black or white, Petrany said.
“That’s just partisan politics,” he said. “(The plaintiffs) have to show the majority is voting differently somehow connected to race.”
Five Georgia voters are appealing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in December 2023 that upheld new legislative and congressional maps Georgia lawmakers had drawn during a special session a few weeks earlier.
The special session was called following a decision Jones handed down in October 2023 ordering the General Assembly in October 2023 to redraw congressional and legislative district lines after voting rights and civil rights groups filed lawsuits claiming the maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
While the maps created a new Black-majority district in western portions of metro Atlanta and some new Black-majority districts in the Georgia House and Senate, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued Thursday that the maps didn’t go far enough.
“Racial polarization is leading to dilution of minority voting strength,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project. “There is less opportunity for minority voters.”
Petrany pointed to the two election victories by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., in 2021 and 2022 as evidence that Black candidates can win statewide in Georgia.
But Abha Khanna, another lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Warnock’s statewide victories were an anomaly and that few Blacks have won statewide elections in Georgia. She noted that of the five Black members of the state’s congressional delegation, four represent Black-majority districts.
“Secretary (of State Brad Raffensperger) says Black voters have done enough winning in Georgia,” she said. “That’s wrong.”