Georgia State Legislature Approves Extremely Gerrymandered Congressional Maps

Today, the Georgia House approved gerrymandered maps that will diminish the voices of Georgian voters in congressional elections for the next decade. The maps were approved by the state Senate on November 19th, and now head to Governor Kemp for his signature.

Statement of Aunna Dennis, Common Cause Georgia Executive Director 

When the redistricting process is led by the politicians, the maps will be drawn to benefit the politicians—and that’s exactly what state legislators have done today.  

While these maps might be beneficial to the politicians in power, they are a complete disgrace to the voters of Georgia. None of the maps accurately reflect the changing population of our state. Instead, they have been intentionally designed to silence Black, Latino and other communities of color from having a voice in our democracy and erase our representation in our government.   

Our preliminary analysis shows that despite population growth in the state being driven largely by Black, Latinx, & Asian populations, and despite the state’s share of the white population decreasing by about 5% from 2010 to 2020, the amount of majority-BIPOC districts in these proposed maps have extremely marginal increases. In fact, the new congressional map decreases the amount of majority-Black districts from the former district map. 

Despite our repeated calls for greater transparency and inclusion, state leaders have continued to ignore the voters throughout the entire process. 

Those in power must remember that these congressional maps don’t belong to the politicians, they belong to the people of Georgia.  

That’s why we are such strong proponents of independent redistricting commissions. District lines need to be drawn putting the interests of people, not politicians, first — and that’s not going to happen as long as politicians are the ones drawing the maps.