Georgia Republican legislative leaders reject governor's call for 2028
redistricting
[June 18, 2026]
By BILL BARROW
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Republican legislative leaders on Wednesday
rejected Gov. Brian Kemp’s call to redraw congressional and legislative
districts during a special session, citing concerns about moving too
quickly after a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakened federal Voting
Rights Act protections for minority voters.
The aborted effort to reduce nonwhite voters' representation contrasts
with other Southern states where Republican majorities moved quickly to
redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the November midterms, partly
in response to President Donald Trump's pleas to shore up the GOP's
fragile House majority.
Civil rights activists and Democrats, especially Black and other
nonwhite lawmakers, celebrated the development and claimed victory after
exerting weeks of pressure and gathering hundreds of citizens at the
Georgia Capitol on Wednesday ahead of the session.
“Today showed that ordinary people don't need to wait until November to
make their voices heard and protect our democracy,” said U.S. Sen.
Raphael Warnock, the state's first Black senator who returned to Atlanta
from Washington to be at the Capitol. “We can stand up and speak right
now.”
Kemp had not asked his fellow Republicans to reopen Georgia districts
ahead of November. Instead, he wanted them to redraw congressional
boundaries for the 2028 election. But the governor, in the final months
of his second term, also called on lawmakers to redraw their own
districts — a move that would have made Georgia the first state to apply
the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais decision to its legislature.
State House Speaker Jon Burns sent Kemp a letter hours before
Wednesday's special session was set to begin, informing him that
legislators would not consider redistricting at all during the session.
He announced the decision publicly shortly after, as demonstrators
filled the Capitol with chants of “Black voters matter!”
Kemp said he believes Georgia's current districts are unconstitutional,
and he sees no reason to delay redistricting.
“Legislative districting, however, is the responsibility of the General
Assembly, and it is within their discretion to defer the issue until a
later date,” Kemp said in a statement.
Burns said lawmakers want to take their time after the Callais decision,
which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an illegal racial
gerrymander and laid the groundwork for legislatures to reduce the
number of districts where Black and other nonwhite voters hold most
sway.
The speaker said it was more important for lawmakers to focus on
economic matters rather than “partisan games.” He also cited pending
litigation over existing Georgia districts and the need to understand
the full ramifications for how race can or cannot be used in
redistricting.
Privately, Republicans had expressed concerns that a rushed process that
diminished Black and other minority voters’ political power could cause
a backlash. And they worried that redrawn districts could
unintentionally create more competitive jurisdictions that Democrats
could win, especially around Atlanta.
Still, Georgia Republicans did not rule out revisiting redistricting
later this year.
Conservative justices gave the green light
Before Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was understood to
require maps — for Congress, state legislatures and local legislative
bodies — that gave historically marginalized minorities a reasonable
chance to select candidates of their choice. Nationally, those so-called
“opportunity districts” have disproportionately elected Black and other
nonwhite representatives.
About one-third of Georgia’s 180 state representatives are Black.
Latino, Asian and other minorities bring the total nonwhite share to
about 40% — roughly reflecting the state’s overall population. Georgia’s
U.S. House delegation has five districts out of 14 total where the
electorate is majority or plurality nonwhite. All elected Black
Democrats in 2024.
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People listen and cheer as lawmakers speak about redistricting
during a special legislative session at the state capitol,
Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
With the Callais ruling, a conservative majority of justices concluded
that jurisdictions drawn with racial makeup in mind violate the U.S.
Constitution’s equal protection clause. Justice Samuel Alito's majority
opinion declared that apportionment should be “race neutral.”
Alito's stated reasoning did not hinge on party interests, and federal
courts have said partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally
permissible. But in Southern states, party loyalty dovetails
considerably with race and ethnicity. So the decision has allowed
Republicans to redraw maps to boost GOP districts by redistributing
nonwhite voters who tend to support Democrats.
Many civil rights activists argue that makes it impossible for Southern
legislatures to be genuinely “race neutral” when drawing boundaries.
Democrats and activists opposed the special session
Minority voting rights are especially salient in Georgia, where the
Capitol complex includes a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and
sits blocks from where the assassinated civil rights icon lived,
preached and led the movement that yielded the Voting Rights Act in
1965.
Warnock, who is also minister at the Atlanta church where King once
preached, invoked the civil rights icon as he led demonstrators who
criticized the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Callais that it was
discriminatory to draw districts to allow minority voters a chance to
elect their preferred representatives.
The senator compared the possibility of scaling back nonwhite
representation to the long Jim Crow history of poll taxes and literacy
tests. White conservatives in the South once called those policies “race
neutral,” too, Warnock noted.
Speaking before Burns’ announcement, Warnock lamented that some white
Republicans who might consider redrawing district lines — or already
have in other states — also praise King on his federal holiday each
year.
“If you want to redraw maps and you have the power to do it, I guess you
can do it,” he said. “But keep Dr. King’s name out of your mouth.”
Trump started the fight before the Supreme Court decision
Nationally, a partisan redistricting battle started last year when Trump
urged Republican-controlled states to gerrymander their congressional
maps. Texas answered the call first.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento answered with
their own gerrymander that voters later approved. A succession of states
followed. The outcome would have been close to even had the Virginia
Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, not struck down new
Democratic-drawn maps approved voters. All told, Republicans think they
could notch a net gain of 10 seats across the multiple states.
That still may not be enough for the GOP to hold a congressional
majority, given Trump's lagging approval ratings. But it could mitigate
Democratic gains and set Republicans up well for 2028 and beyond.
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