As Trump spent his Thursday calling Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp a “disaster,” Kemp was busy calling legislators to a special session on redistricting of the state’s congressional, state House, and state Senate maps in a mad effort to keep himself and his cronies in office. Or, as I like to call it, just another Friday in the Southern Republic’s efforts to hold on to systemic racism.
Redistricting or gerrymandering is a play Republicans live by, so it's no big surprise this would be Kemp’s move. Who cares about burgeoning crime rates or expanding Medicaid to poor Georgians? In a state with a million new potential voters since 2010 (according to the recent census), redrawing districts is the necessary power move.
Every 10 years, state lawmakers draw state legislative and congressional districts to reflect population from the census. It gives the majority party the right to retain control and the minority party the chance to fight for its seats, knowing it lacks the votes in the General Assembly to help it.
Here’s a little gerrymandering background from the History Channel:
“In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon depicting ‘a new species of monster’: ‘The Gerry-mander.’ The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party. Governor (and future vice president) Elbridge Gerry signed off on his party’s redistricting plan in February, unwittingly cementing his place in the United States lexicon of underhanded political tricks.”
And, just like they did to Southern Black communities after the Civil War, Georgia Republicans today will likely clump conservative communities together to build on their majorities.
According to reporting by Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia GOP will likely target Democratic incumbents Rep. Lucy McBath and Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux—both of whom flipped Republican-held House seats.
Republicans in Georgia currently hold eight of the 14 House seats, a 57% majority and a 61% majority in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Trump is dragging Kemp’s name through the mud after his presidential loss in the state, citing Kemp’s refusal to review the 2020 results again and then proclaimed Kemp’s second-term loss.
“He’s not going to be able to win the general election anyway because the base isn’t going to show up for him,” Trump told conservative radio talk show host and former co-chair of his 2016 presidential campaign, John Fredericks. “It’s almost like he’s a Democrat in disguise.”
And just so you know, redistricting by the majority is permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court—see what I mean about systemic racism? Also, gerrymandering fell out of favor in the South in the early 20th century when lynching and poll taxes became the preferred and successful method of keeping Black folks from voting.
Thomas Hunter, a political science professor at the University of West Georgia, describes gerrymandering this way: “In some ways, it’s politicians picking their voters as opposed to voters picking their politicians.”
