ATLANTA — Georgia is pursuing another challenge related to the Voting Rights Act, requesting that a federal appeals court redefine the 1965 law in a manner that could significantly complicate efforts to demonstrate that minority votes are being unfairly diluted. On Thursday, a state attorney presented this argument to a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, seeking to overturn a lower court ruling which mandated that lawmakers create an increased number of Black-majority electoral districts.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, contended in his court documents that the Voting Rights Act is being misinterpreted to enhance the electoral prospects of Democrats, asserting that the voting preferences of white individuals lean towards Republicans for reasons that are not racially motivated.
Georgia’s Solicitor General, Stephen Petrany, who represents the state in this legal appeal, claimed the evidence did not support the assertion that white voters’ political choices were influenced by race within the electoral districts designed by Republicans. Petrany stated, “It is not covered when the majority simply outvotes the minority based on political polarization.”
Conversely, attorneys for the federal government and the organizations that filed the lawsuit to modify Georgia’s congressional and legislative maps argue that the state is attempting to convince the judges to establish a new, more challenging standard to prove discrimination under the Voting Rights Act. This comes less than two years after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a different challenge from Alabama concerning this significant legal framework.
Abha Khanna, representing several groups involved in the lawsuit to change the maps, noted that in Georgia, Black voters predominantly back Democrats, while white voters typically support Republicans. Khanna expressed skepticism about Raffensperger’s claims, stating, “The secretary cannot muster any nonracial explanation for why Black and white voters in Georgia have separated so neatly into separate political parties.”
Defending the prior court ruling was Noah Bokat-Lindell, an attorney from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. He maintained the federal government’s active role in the case, even amid the new administration’s efforts to pause certain civil rights legal actions.
The Voting Rights Act was enacted to eliminate racial discrimination in electoral processes, including the gerrymandering of districts in a way that hampers minority groups from electing their choice of candidates. In the Southern states, redistricting occurs every decade based on shifts in population, leading to legal disputes regarding the fairness of these legislative and congressional boundaries for Black citizens.
In Georgia, previous lawsuits led to an order to amend the state’s 14 congressional districts to form an additional Black-majority district in the western region of metropolitan Atlanta, as well as directives to establish more Black-majority districts in the state Senate and House.
Some Democratic leaders anticipated that the federal court ruling would yield further electoral advantages for their party. However, the Republican-controlled redistricting resulted in maintaining a 9-5 majority in congressional districts and a 33-23 majority in state Senate districts, with Democrats managing to secure only two additional seats in the House, reducing Republican dominance to 100-80.
Raffensperger claimed the lower court’s decision was erroneous because the judge did not conclusively determine that the behaviors of white voters were racially motivated. He highlighted the Republican nomination of Herschel Walker, who is Black, for the Senate in 2022 as evidence of this. Petrany remarked, “The evidence is virtually undisputed that when you change the race of the candidate, the majority votes virtually the same. When you change the party of the candidate, the majority voting behavior changes drastically.”
This statement led to agreement from Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, who was appointed by Donald Trump, prompting her to inquire, “Isn’t this the best evidence that it’s partisan and not racial?” In contrast, Sophia Lakin, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that Walker’s nomination is an isolated incident that does not outweigh the overwhelming evidence of a racially divided electorate.
Petrany maintained that much of this evidence is dated and asserted that Georgia’s history of segregation does not reflect the current state of affairs. “It can’t be that the sins of the past forever taint what Georgia is doing today,” he stated. Nonetheless, one judge on the panel emphasized the significance of historical context, with Judge Robin Rosenbaum, appointed by Barack Obama, noting, “That just ignores the history of what’s happened over 200 years in Georgia.”
