President Joe Biden put Georgia at the center of the national voting rights fight in 2021 when he branded the state’s Republican-backed election overhaul “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
Now, five years later, a separate Georgia voting rights battle involving allegations of racial discrimination is garnering national attention as it plays out in federal court.
This time, the dispute centers on the state’s redrawn congressional and state maps redrawn in 2021, with challengers facing a significantly tougher burden of proof after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
The latest development came when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a lower court judgment striking down Georgia’s 2021 maps and returned the case to U.S. District Judge Steve Jones.
The appeals court instructed Jones to reconsider the challenge under the new framework established in Callais, which raised the bar for plaintiffs alleging racial discrimination in redistricting.
Under that standard, evidence that a map weakened Black voters’ electoral influence is not enough by itself. Plaintiffs must present evidence supporting a “strong inference” of intentional racial discrimination and distinguish the effects of race from those of partisan politics.
That distinction is especially important in Georgia, where Black voters overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates, creating significant overlap between race and partisan affiliation. That overlap could make it more difficult for the challengers to prove that race, rather than political advantage, drove the district lines.
Black voters and voting rights organizations filed three lawsuits challenging the maps between December 2021 and January 2022, arguing that the districts diluted Black voting power in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Jones ruled for the challengers in 2023 and ordered Georgia to create additional majority-Black districts, including one congressional district, two state Senate districts and five state House districts.
Georgia subsequently enacted replacement maps that satisfied Jones’ order while preserving the Republican Party’s political advantage elsewhere. Those maps were used in the 2024 elections and remain in place for the 2026 election cycle, while the legality of the original maps remained at the center of Georgia’s appeal.
MEDIA OUTRAGE OVER SUPREME COURT’S VOTING RIGHTS ACT DECISION COLLIDES WITH REALITY
Before Callais, plaintiffs suing based on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act could win their case without proving that lawmakers intentionally discriminated on the basis of race. Courts focused heavily on whether a map had the effect of diminishing minority voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidates. But under Callais, courts must more closely examine whether present-day racial discrimination was behind the redrawing of the maps rather than political advantages.
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said he does not believe the Georgia challenge will survive the new test.
“I don’t think a challenge will succeed because there is no evidence of current racial discrimination going on in the state legislature,” von Spakovsky said. “Prior rulings against the state were based on judges misconstruing and misinterpreting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by claiming there was racial dilution resulting from partisan gerrymandering.
“That is not the correct legal standard under Section 2,” he continued. “Partisan gerrymandering is constitutional and is not a violation of Section 2.”
GEORGIA REDISTRICTING BATTLE REVIVED AFTER APPEALS COURT OVERTURNS FEDERAL COURT DECISION
Georgia can argue that lawmakers were pursuing partisan objectives rather than targeting Black voters because of their race. Because the state’s Black and Democratic voting blocs substantially overlap, separating those possible motivations could prove difficult for the challengers.
“The Supreme Court in the Callais decision specifically said that a viable claim under Section 2 can only be shown if there is evidence of current racial discrimination, and judges must distinguish between racial and political bases for the way people vote,” von Spakovsky said.
“In other words, there’s no racial dilution going on when individuals are voting a particular way because of their politics.”
Jones must now decide how to handle the remanded case. The plaintiffs could ask to supplement the record with revised maps, updated statistical analyses or additional evidence addressing the Supreme Court’s new requirements. The 11th Circuit, however, did not automatically grant them a new trial or authorize them to rebuild their case from the beginning.
Georgia could argue that the plaintiffs have already received a full trial and that Jones should apply the new standard solely to the existing record.
Whatever Jones decides is unlikely to alter Georgia’s districts before the November 2026 midterm elections. The appeals court did not order the state to reinstate the original 2021 maps, and Georgia has already conducted its primaries using the replacement districts created from the 2023 map.
