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A federal judge on Thursday approved a new congressional district map in Georgia that favors Republicans, saying it complies with his order to include a majority-Black district, even though the map also fractures a major majority-nonwhite district elsewhere in the state.
"The Court finds that the General Assembly fully complied with this Court’s order requiring the creation of a majority-Black congressional district in the region of the State where vote dilution was found," U.S. District Judge Steve Jones wrote in his decision.
Jones went on to note that because the case has centered on Black voters, the dismantling of the 7th District does not violate his October order for a map that creates an additional majority-Black district in the western part of metro Atlanta.
The 7th District — a "coalition district" that Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath represents — is majority-nonwhite, consisting mostly of voters who are Black, Hispanic or Asian. McBath said shortly after the ruling that she would run in the newly drawn 6th District.
It is the second time that Georgia Republicans have pushed McBath out of her district. She was first elected to the U.S. House to represent Georgia's 6th District, a majority-white area, in 2018. Republicans redrew the boundaries in 2021 to encompass more conservative areas, and McBath then ran in the neighboring 7th District.
Earlier this month, after the Georgia state Legislature approved the new map, she remained defiant. "I intend to come back to Washington," she told Politico.
Jones had ordered a redesign of the district lines in October, ruling that the maps — drawn after the 2020 U.S. census — diluted Black Georgians’ voting power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. The new maps were approved by the GOP-controlled state Legislature earlier this month.
The ruling may still be appealed, but the new map is likely to be in effect for the 2024 election, and secure Georgia Republicans’ 9-5 majority in the U.S. House, despite the new majority-Black district. Jones also approved new maps that favor Republicans' majority in the state Legislature.
He wrote in his Thursday ruling that, should the lawsuit's plaintiffs wish to argue that the new congressional map violates the voting rights of three other minority groups, and not just of Black voters, it would be "more appropriately addressed in a separate proceeding."