Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called a special legislative session on redistricting to begin June 17th, the day after runoffs will settle party nominees for the November elections. Kemp has said he doesn’t want to change Georgia’s voting districts for this year's elections, because some ballots already have been cast for Tuesday’s first round of primaries.
The governor’s proclamation is the first to focus on the 2028 elections since the Supreme Court's ruling in the Louisiana case. Other states could follow, including Democratic states such as New York that were already looking at ways to enact new legislative districts by the next presidential election.
By acting now, Georgia Republicans could guard against the possibility that a Democrat could win the governor's race in November and veto new voting districts if the legislature had waited to act until its regular session next year.
Five of Georgia’s 14 U.S. House members are Black Democrats. The easiest target for Republicans could be U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop’s district in southwest Georgia. Republicans could also try to pick off one or more of the four Democrats who represent parts of the Atlanta area, but spreading out too many Democrats could make more Republican districts competitive.
Kemp’s proclamation allows new boundaries not only for U.S. House districts but also for the state Senate and state House. A court previously ordered some state House and Senate districts be redrawn to help Black voters elect more candidates, voiding a map the GOP-controlled legislature drew after the 2020 Census. Republicans could choose to revert to that map or take a more aggressive path, especially in the 180-member House, where the GOP’s majority has shrunk over time to 99 seats.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said Wednesday he would “fight this with everything I have.”
“There is an extreme movement in this country that will stop at nothing to hold on to power, even if it means stripping representation away from millions,” Warnock wrote in an online post.
