Battle over Black voter suppression in Georgia returns to federal court

ATLANTA (CN) — An 11th Circuit panel heard arguments Thursday over whether the Georgia legislature’s redrawn districting maps continue to dilute the voting power of Black Georgians in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Those Congressional and legislative maps were struck down by a lower court in late 2023 after an eight-day bench trial and lawmakers returned to the Capitol to redraw them.

The appellate panel grappled with whether the new maps complied with a judge’s order to create two new majority-Black Senate districts and three additional majority-Black House districts to remedy vote dilution in the Metro Atlanta area.

The plaintiffs in the case, including Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, a historically Black fraternity active in civil rights causes, argued lawmakers merely reshuffled Black voters between existing majority-Black districts and manipulated electoral boundaries to form the appearance of “new districts,” without creating new opportunities in areas where vote dilution was proven.

“Black voters in south metro Atlanta are still suffering precisely the same injury they were before these remedial plans were enacted,” attorney Ari Savitzky told the court.

Their suit originally challenged Georgia’s plans enacted in 2021, which a judge ruled diminished Black voting power by failing to increase the number of majority-Black districts in the metro Atlanta area after the 2020 census showed increased Black population growth.

Savitzky argued the state increased the number of mostly Black districts statewide, but did so by adding tens of thousands of Black voters to majority-Black districts in other areas that were not at issue in the case.

While the state created a new mostly Black district in west metro Atlanta, Savitzky argued it dismantled a neighboring majority-Black district where Black voters had the opportunity to elect their candidates of choice but no longer do.

“Why is the focus on voters that were unaffected before as opposed to remedies given to the voters who were affected?” U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan asked.

“If you remedy the problem of the voters who had the section 2 violation, why does it matter where the other voters come from to create the Black-majority district?” the Barack Obama appointee added.

One of the state’s congressional districts featuring predominately nonwhite and Democratic voters was redrawn and 57.81% of its minority voting population was cut in half. The plaintiffs argued this created a new federal voting rights violation, but the lower court said the case only concerns Black voters and that the new objections would require a separate proceeding.

“There’s no justification for leaving voters in the cold,” said attorney Abha Khanna, who represented a group of Black voters in two other challenges against the map that were also brought before the 11th Circuit Thursday.

The state claimed it was obligated to protect majority Black districts, not districts where a coalition of minorities make up the majority, but U.S. Circuit Judge Jill Pryor questioned whether the lower court fully evaluated the redrawn maps and whether they adequately redressed the issue.

Jordan noted there is a general obligation on the lower courts to make sure the remedial map itself doesn’t violate the Voting Rights Act.

State attorney Stephen Petrany urged the panel to accept a federal judge’s approval of its new maps. He argued the claims concern partisanship, not actual racial vote dilution.

While the state added districts with a majority of Black voters under the redrawn maps, it changed little in partisan representation and kept Republicans in control of the state’s legislature and congressional delegation.

“They’re gerrymandered to begin with,” Petrany said.

Thursday was not the first time the case came before the 11th Circuit. Jordan said a ruling will not be issued until a separate panel rules on the merits of an appeal from the state, which argues even its 2021 districting maps were lawful.

Jordan and Pryor, a fellow Obama appointee, were joined by U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno from the Southern District Court of Florida.

The case is one of many playing out across Southern states in which Republicans are defending congressional maps that judges have deemed discriminatory.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama’s 2021 congressional map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power in the state. It later rejected Alabama’s attempt to circumvent the redraw of its congressional maps to include a second majority-Black district.

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