Federal Judge Rules Georgia’s Redistricing Map Violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965
Georgia’s lawyers argued that the legislature drew the map “based on partisanship rather than race.”
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled that the redistricting map by the Republican-controlled General Assembly violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“The Court commends Georgia for the great strides that it has made to increase the political opportunities of Black voters in the 58 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” wrote the judge. “Despite these great gains, the Court determines that in certain areas of the State, the political process is not equally open to Black voters. For example, in the past decade, all of Georgia’s population growth was attributable to the minority population, however, the number of majority-Black congressional and legislative districts remained the same.”
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 states:
(a)No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 10303(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b).
(b)A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.
The judge noted that Georgia’s population grew to 10,711,908 between 2010 and 2020. The overall minority growth was 1,076,019 at 25.18. Those who are AP [any-part] Black increased by 484,048 (15,85%). However, the white population decreased by 51,764 people.
Georgia’s lawyers argued that the legislature drew the map “based on partisanship rather than race.”
The lawyers admitted that the politicians made the districts to help the GOP “but didn’t discriminate against Black voters.” From the AJC:
But plaintiffs in the case, including civil rights organizations and religious groups, said the Republican-controlled General Assembly denied opportunities for Black voters during redistricting two years ago.
During that redistricting, the General Assembly shifted the boundaries of the 6th Congressional District, which was previously held by U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, a Black woman from Cobb County.
The new district included heavily Republican and white areas to the north, resulting in Republican Rich McCormick winning the seat in last year’s election with 62% of the vote. McBath ran and won in the neighboring 7th District, ousting her Democratic colleague in the U.S. House, Carolyn Bourdeaux.
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Comments
Obama appointee
Same judge
_On December 17, 2019, Jones appeared in multiple news headlines after declining in an interlocutory order to stop a purge of 309,000 Georgia voters from the state’s list of registered voters
Huh? You’ve just cited an example of him doing the right thing, and acting as an impartial judge rather than a partisan “0bama judge”.
And his current decision seems consistent with the recent and unfortunate supreme court decision in Alabama.
What the hell are you talking about? Inactive voters should be purged from the roles. There’s no reason to keep inactive voters on the roles especially if you know for instance that some of them have died and some of them have moved and others just haven’t voted in three or four presidential cycles.
Um…
“declining in an interlocutory order to stop a purge”
I know the double negative can sometimes make it difficult to parse what’s really being said; but, according to what Millhouse posted, the ruling allowed the purge of voter roles to continue.
You’re an idiot. You just admitted he did the right thing, and yet you are criticizing him for it?
By statute the state is required to keep accurate voter rolls and the US Supreme Court upheld basically identical practice done by Ohio in 2018…. But by all means Milhouse advocate for those who like to keep those dead Democrat votes rolling in
You are a blilthering nincompoop. What the actual hell are you talking about? You have no idea. What you wrote makes no sense at all. You should just keep your idiot mouth shut so nobody will know how stupid you are.
Am I wrong or are we not supposed to do things based on people’s race?
I guess you never read Allen v. Milligan.
We’re not. The allegation is that the legislature did things based on people’s race. It’s not alleged that its purpose was racist; the plaintiffs acknowledge that the purpose was to discriminate against Democrats rather than against blacks. But it’s alleged that it consciously discriminated against black people because it knows that black people consistently vote Democrat. Whereas the legislature’s argument is that black had nothing to do with it, it was discriminating directly against Democrat voters, and didn’t even notice what color they were.
because it knows that black people consistently vote Democrat
There’s the problem right there. Assuming blacks vote Democrat as a racial characteristic is prima facie racist. Assuming that only Democrats can represent blacks is racist.
But because that’s a racist default of Progressives, it gets entirely ignored. After all, Progressives just can’t be racist.
What the Republicans did is NOT racist.
The very idea that congressional districts should be apportioned based on race is repugnant and racist.
If they were actually apportioned BY race it would mean that black votes as a racist bloc would be almost meaningless in most of the country. That’s probably the way it should be to eliminate tribalism and other issues that lead to divisive politics.
Many are actually apportioned to have disproportionate representation though so that tribalism can thrive and fester.
One day people will look back at this period of time in our country and declare it the most racist era since the Civil War. Liberal judges in effect override the state and federal legislatures and dictate what the rest of us must do. This is not what the founders intended.
And yet that’s exactly what they do
Appeal the decision.
Also, it’s stupid the federal government keeps interfering in state issues. They have made more messes of everything by doing so.
Appeal to the Roberts’ Court? Alabama tried that and the result basically requires discrimination in districting. Roberts is the gift that keeps on giving. Like a constitutional venereal disease.
The current court has unfortunately already spoken its mind. Appealing again doesn’t seem very useful.
And the constitution does explicitly give Congress the right to regulate congressional elections.
The constitution doesn’t empower Congress to require discriminatory districting notwithstanding the convoluted Supreme Courts precedent. Now I’m not saying that the Supreme Court precedent doesn’t require it, I’m just saying the Court on this matter, like many other matters past and present, is mistaken.
I thought states determined districts and other matters, not the Federales?
Tell that to that clod Roberts.
The states do it only subject to federal law. The constitution explicitly gives Congress the final say.
Looks to me like the Court has given itself the final say.
Looking at the steaming pile of word garbage that constitutes the court’s ruling, I think it appropriate to offer a quote from the dissent of Thomas in Allen v Milligan. “These cases are yet another installment in the disastrous misadventure of this Court’s voting rights jurisprudence…. What distinguishes them is the uncommon clarity with which they lay bare the gulf between our “color-blind” Constitution… and the consciously segregated districting system currently being constructed in the name of the Voting Rights Act.
The main objection to the creation/maintenance of ‘majority minority’ CD is that it groups voters by color/race. That is a card from the deck of segregation. If a State uses geographic boundaries such as rivers and political boundaries like County lines and City limits as the start point for grouping voters into CD I don’t see a legitimate objection. An exception would be IF the State deviated from those aspects to deliberately eliminate a naturally occurring ‘majority minority’ CD.
I don’t see how creating or maintaining artificial majority minority CD is viewed as Constitutional. The CTs gonna have to give much more transparent/specific guidance. Right now States are legit attempting to comply with guidance to maintain compactness, use political boundaries to avoid splitting Counties and Municipalities when possible, to use geographic boundaries like rivers as a CD boundary instead of placing communities on opposite sides of that river into the same CD. The CTs gonna need to set a list of priorities for States to follow instead of a hodgepodge of case law that is more than a bit contradictory about the overall priorities.
The Supreme Court doesn’t care so unless Congress amends the Voting Rights Act again, we’re stuck with this garbage.
The court can throw out the VRA if they think it is unconstitutional
But they didn’t and gave us Allen v Milligan instead last summer. Resulting in the present crap.
It can do that, and it has thrown out parts that it thought were unconstitutional, but it says the remaining parts of the act are constitutional and therefore binding on the states. It’ll take another few appointments to change that.
It also used to say that racial segregation was just dandy.
This is Biden’s America… NOTHING the Supreme says is binding if the left doesn’t like it… they ignore with impunity
And of course, if you DO construct a majority minority CD, that’s wrong, too, as it artificially limits the number of reps they might otherwise get.
Plus the States must also apply Shaw v Reno and Miller v Johnson which pretty well rule out the over emphasis of race in drawing CD….. until a CT says ‘hey you guys didn’t pay enough attention to race’. Then there’s the requirement for compliance with one person/one vote, at last insofar as total numbers within a CD but oddly not of Citizens, which with very strict adherence means it is a zero sum after each Census.
Not “oddly”. Representation is explicitly based on “all persons’, not on citizens.
Oh? Since forever to antiquity? Until Baker v Carr in 1962 drawing legislative districts was considered a purely political question. It wasn’t until 1964 in Wesberry v Sanders and then Reynolds v Simms that the equal protection clause was applied to questions of drawing legislative districts. That’s in living memory.
As a practical matter non Citizens are indirectly represented either way at the Federal level. For now at least they can’t vote in Federal elections though some States and Municipalities are working to allow non Citizen voting in their non Federal elections. So that being the case why base apportionment of CD among States based on non Citizen population? Once the CD are apportioned to each State then within a State maybe shoot for equal # of Citizens within a +/- 10% or 15% range for drawing CD.
Doing that removes any potential incentive for a State to up the # of CD via non cooperation with Federal Immigration agencies.
Yes, since forever, back to 1788. The constitution says explicitly that representation is to be based on “all persons”, not on citizens.
What you cite is not relevant and does not support the point you tried to make. You say it’s odd that when states are required to make districts equal in population this is based on total population rather than citizens, but that is not odd at all. It would be odd to require it to be based on citizens, since that is not who is represented. Once the constitution says representation must be based on “all person”, it only makes sense that if you’re going to require that districts be equal (which you certainly should require, and any past decision that allowed rotten boroughs was obviously wrong) they should be equal in the same measure that the representation is based on in the first place.
Hang on you are skipping some things.
1. Have apportionment of CD among the States by Total Citizens and lawful permanent residents. May or may not (IMO not) require a Constitutional amendment.
2. Within each State have them follow all the other criteria for drawing CD; compactness, follow political boundaries and so on.
3. Add a bit of wiggle room +/- 10 or 15% to get roughly equal numbers of Citizen voters in the CD.
Now if you want to argue in favor of eliminating the one person /one vote aspect of drawing legislative districts then OK. However, when CD have vastly unequal numbers of Citizen voters between the CD of a particular State then that flies in the face of the one person/one vote diktat. If CD X has 400K adult Citizens and CD Y has 200K adult Citizens then the actual power/influence of each voter in CD Y is twice that of CD X.
Moreover the number of persons within the CD of a particular State would still be roughly equal under my proposal. The difference within the State would be a more equal distribution of Citizen Voters among the CD so that we don’t have CD with vastly different # of Voters.
Definitely would, because the constitution says “the whole number of persons”.
No, it wouldn’t. You can either have an equal number of persons per district, or an equal number of voters per district. You can’t have both.
instead of placing communities on opposite sides of that river into the same CD
Someone will complain that’s nothing more than using the railroad tracks to divide. “Those people” “over there”. Because some people are terribly vested in racial division.
They can and do complain but using geographic boundaries like rivers is one of the boxes to check off if one is trying to comply with previous precedent which tells States to do that. Same with trying not to split up a County or Municipality if at all possible.
Black wins everything everytime
Am I the only one that can read that part?
Uh huh. And then the court goes right ahead with its proportional allocation of political power on the basis of race. If you’re looking for a color-blind constitutional resolution you’ve come to the wrong federal court system.
No, you’re not. In the Alabama case the supreme court explicitly acknowledged that part and said that’s not what’s happening here. Even though, as the dissent pointed out, the lower court pretty much explicitly said that was what it was doing.
So what the court is saying is, voting Democrat is a racial characteristic of black people in Georgia.
Nothing at all racist about that, eh?
Fouad: Ah, ha ha ha ha! It’s funny because it true!
So why is it the white voters who are likely a minority in the mostly black districts don’t sue for the same reason?
Duh. It’s not racist to discriminate against white people because of the color of their skin. (At least, if they vote Republican.)