Courts continue weighing Georgia's political maps, with potentially broad implications for Voting Rights Act

Georgia Rep. Mack Jackson, D-Sandersville, looks at a map of proposed state House districts before a House hearing, Nov. 29, 2023, at the state Capitol in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

Drew Angerer / Drew Angerer

A federal appeals court is weighing the future of Georgia’s new district lines for Congress and the state legislature after hearing oral arguments Thursday in a long-running case that could have sweeping implications for the federal Voting Rights Act.

When state lawmakers drew new maps after the 2020 census, several voters, civic and religious groups sued, arguing the maps illegally diluted Black voting power. In 2023, a federal judge agreed, ordering new maps with new majority-Black districts.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger appealed that decision, even as updated maps took effect. The appeal focuses on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate by race, color or language.



The state says their initial maps did not violate Section 2 because partisan politics, not race, can explain any difficulties faced by Black candidates.

“There’s plenty of indication here that there’s partisanship,” Georgia Solicitor General Stephen Petrany told the appeals court. “There’s almost no indication that any voting patterns are shifting one way or the other because of the race of the candidate…”

“That sort of ignores what’s happened over 200-plus years in Georgia,” Judge Robin Rosenbaum replied, referring to Georgia’s racial polarization and history of discriminating against Black voters.

Black Georgians today tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, while white Georgians skew heavily Republican – an alignment that began with Democrats’ embrace of civil and voting rights legislation in the middle of the last century.

Lawyers for the state say that history and Section 2 are not as relevant today.

“It can’t be that the sins of the past forever taint everything that Georgia is doing,” Petrany said.

The state is also challenging whether private citizens can even bring Section 2 claims at all. That would leave the U.S. Department of Justice to bring challenges under the VRA, which would be unlikely under the Trump Administration. Voting rights advocates say this would essentially gut the Voting Rights Act. 

This panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit does not appear poised to do that. Two of the three judges were appointed by Democratic presidents; the third is a Trump appointee.

However, the Voting Rights Act’s future could be on the line if Georgia’s case reaches the conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court.