Georgia Senate Republicans propose map with 2 new Black-majority districts
The plan, released as a court-ordered special session opened, would eliminate two white-majority Atlanta-area districts held by Democrats while leaving the chamber's overall 33-23 Republican edge intact.
Georgia Senate Republicans released a proposed new state Senate map that would create two additional Black-majority districts, as a special legislative session ordered by a federal judge got underway at the Capitol in Atlanta. The map was made public Monday, November 27, 2023, and the special session on redrawing state legislative and congressional districts began Wednesday, according to reporting from Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The redraw follows a ruling from U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, who found that Georgia's existing congressional, state Senate and state House maps illegally diluted the political power of Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Under the proposal, released by Senate Redistricting Chairwoman Shelly Echols, the number of majority-Black state Senate districts would rise from 13 to 15, the Journal-Constitution reported.
What is not yet settled, as of this coverage, is how the state House and congressional maps will be redrawn to satisfy the same court order — those plans had not been released at the time the Senate map was made public, the Associated Press reported via Atlanta News First. It is also not established in this reporting how legal challengers or the court will assess whether the new Senate map, which preserves the Republican majority, fully cures the vote dilution the judge identified.
Which districts change, and how
The proposal reshapes districts currently held by two Atlanta-area Democrats. The district represented by Democratic state Sen. Jason Esteves would shift from a Black voting-age population of about 22% to about 52%, and the district represented by Democratic state Sen. Elena Parent would shift from about 29% to about 51% Black voting-age population, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Associated Press, in its account carried by Atlanta News First, described the change more broadly as eliminating two white-majority districts currently represented by Esteves and Parent, both of Atlanta, to make way for the two new Black-majority districts.
The changes are not confined to those two seats. The Journal-Constitution's reporting also noted that the district held by Republican state Sen. Brian Strickland would become about 31% Black, adjacent to a roughly 60% Black district represented by Democratic state Sen. Gail Davenport — an illustration of how the remap ripples into neighboring districts beyond the two seats being converted.
The political math Republicans are preserving
Despite adding two Black-majority districts, Republicans would keep their existing 33-23 edge in the 56-seat chamber under the proposal, both the Associated Press and the Journal-Constitution reported. In a statement carried in the Journal-Constitution's coverage, Senate Republicans said Echols had conducted "a thoughtful, inclusive, and transparent redrawing process" aimed at ensuring the map "fully complies" with Judge Jones's order. Public hearings on the plan were scheduled for Wednesday, the same day the special session opened, according to that reporting.
What it signals
The map is a test case for how a legislative majority can satisfy a Voting Rights Act remedy — adding the specific number and type of districts a court orders — without giving up the chamber-wide power built on the map the court just struck down. By concentrating new Black voting strength into two reshaped Atlanta districts while leaving overall partisan control at 33-23, the proposal suggests Senate Republicans read Judge Jones's order narrowly, as a district-level remedy rather than a mandate to change the chamber's balance of power. Whether that reading survives scrutiny from the plaintiffs or the court is not addressed in the coverage reviewed here, since it turns on House and congressional maps that had not yet been released and on hearings that had not yet occurred at publication time.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia Public Broadcasting and the Associated Press (via Atlanta News First). It restores a story originally published on this site in November 2023; figures are as reported at the time.