Georgia Lawmakers Nix Redistricting on Day 1 of Special Session

Leaders of Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature on Wednesday announced they will not redraw the state’s district maps this year despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that said race-based gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

Recently, some lawmakers in the Georgia General Assembly argued in favor of drawing new district lines for the 2028 elections following the high court ruling. Gov. Brian Kemp added it to the agenda for the special legislative session that began on Wednesday.

However, in a statement released on Wednesday, Senate President Pro Tem Larry Walker III explained that the Legislature would not tackle the issue at this time.

“We believe it is prudent to allow the judicial process to continue developing in other states and to carefully evaluate how courts rule on newly adopted district maps across the country,” he said. “With this guidance, we are confident that Georgia’s new districts will ultimately withstand legal scrutiny and that Georgia will prevail in defending its position in court.”

“For these reasons, the Senate sent a letter to Governor Kemp informing him that redistricting will not be taken up during this Special Legislative Session,” Walker added.

Instead, lawmakers will spend the session focused on issues including property tax relief, extending the suspension of the state gas tax, and election integrity.

Lawmakers also face a July 1 deadline for whether to remove QR codes from ballots as required by a prior law. A bill was introduced on Wednesday to extend the deadline to 2028 due to administrative confusion in the middle of this year’s election cycle. Georgia began using the codes in 2020 to count ballots

The decision comes amid several legal cases that lack a verdict in Georgia, as well as in other states that have been reassessing their maps following the Louisiana v. Callais decision.

The Supreme Court stated that “lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

Kemp has argued for the unconstitutionality Georgia’s current district maps, redrawn in 2023, following the high court’s ruling. However, he admitted governors do not have the authority to force legislators create new maps.

The Daily Signal reached out to state Sen. Nikki Merritt, D-Grayson, for comment regarding redistricting in Georgia.

A spokesperson for Merrit responded, “She [Merritt] strongly believes that it should be something that the state senators come together and agree upon, when it comes to redistricting, and that should be based on the census that we conduct every 10 years, not by any personal interest.”

House Speaker Jon Burns, a Republican, echoed this sentiment when discussing the future of the state and what issues affect Georgians most at this time—not “partisan gain.”

The debate between lawmakers has raised a discussion about the role race should play, if any, when it comes to redistricting.

Walker said lawmakers will continue to monitor the redistricting process in other states, such as Alabama and Tennessee, which have sought to reconfigure their maps consisting of certain majority-Black districts. In South Carolina, legislators considered redistricting but ultimately chose to drop the matter.

Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II noted resistance from Georgians, which he claims pressured Republicans to abandon their hopes for redistricting.