ATLANTA — A lawsuit or series of lawsuits challenging Georgia’s new congressional maps are likely coming soon, but there is one big holdup.
The new maps aren’t official until Gov. Brian Kemp signs the bill.
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U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, a Georgia Democrat, was in Lawrenceville on Monday touting Medicaid expansion for Georgia in the Build Back Better Bill.
The new congressional map passed by the legislature a week ago makes her Gwinnett-centered 7th Congressional District safely Democratic but turns fellow Democrat Lucy McBath’s neighboring 6th Congressional District into a potential Republican stronghold.
The two Democrats now will face off for the one 7th District seat.
“By all rights, the state should be seven Democrats and seven Republicans. It’s a 50/50 state, and so what they did was clearly gerrymander, the Republican leadership did, to advantage themselves,” Bourdeaux said.
On Sunday, leading national Democratic Party Attorney Marc Elias tweeted that Georgia was the No. 1 state to watch for new voting rights and redistricting litigation.
However, the lawsuits likely will not and cannot happen until Gov. Kemp signs them into law, and that may not happen for weeks.
Attorney Michael Li is a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Li says challenging the maps in court will be an uphill climb.
“I think they could be more challenging this decade than past decades just because courts have pulled back on voting rights laws, making them harder to use, and the Supreme Court has green lighted partisan gerrymandering. There’s still a path up the hill, but it is a much harder and narrower path than it was before,” Li said.
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House speaker David Ralston told Channel 2 Action News last week he’s confident the maps, which will likely move Georgia’s congressional delegation from an 8-to-6 split to a 9-to-5 GOP advantage, will survive any legal challenge.
“They very carefully followed the law,” Ralston said.
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While many expect new challenges in the courts on these maps, a federal judge finally set a trial date for a voting rights lawsuit that is three years old. The suit filed by Fair Fight Action after Brian Kemp topped Stacey Abrams for Governor has been set to go to trial in February.
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