Court strikes down Georgia GOP's gerrymanders for discriminating against Black voters

On Thursday, a federal district court struck down the congressional and legislative gerrymanders that Georgia Republicans enacted after the 2020 census, ruling that they illegally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The lower court gave the Republican-led legislature until Dec. 8 to redraw one congressional district and seven legislative districts to remedy this racial discrimination, though the GOP will assuredly appeal to reverse the ruling or delay any new maps until after 2024.

The court ordered the creation of a new congressional district that was majority Black or close to it in Atlanta's western suburbs, and the plaintiffs had previously proposed just such a map, which you can see compared to the GOP's gerrymander on the map at the top of this story. (Click here for a larger image, and see here for an interactive version). This plaintiff map would dismantle the solidly red 6th District, which is currently represented by GOP Rep. Rich McCormick; in its place would be an entirely new 6th due west of Atlanta that would become just over 50% Black and heavily Democratic.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that Black Georgians accounted for nearly half of the state's population growth of over 1 million people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses. The Atlanta metropolitan area in particular has seen explosive growth from Black, Latino, and Asian American residents. Despite that increased diversity, the GOP's new congressional map failed to create a new district near Atlanta where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate, who would almost certainly be a Black Democrat.

Instead, Republicans gerrymandered the 6th District to flip it from blue to red. The old 6th had been a majority-white but highly educated suburban district directly north of Atlanta that Black Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath had flipped in 2018 and held in 2020. The previous district had backed Joe Biden 55-44 in 2020, but the GOP's new gerrymander radically reconfigured it into a district that Donald Trump would have won 57-42.