Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday announced he was calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special session beginning June 17 to redraw the state’s congressional districts for the 2028 election.
Critics say the move would almost certainly deliver Republicans additional seats in the US House at the direct expense of Black voters’ political power.
“I will fight this with everything I have,” US Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) said.
The special session comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, a sweeping decision that dramatically weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 was the primary legal tool used to challenge discriminatory electoral maps. It ensured Black voters had genuine representation in Congress, and was pivotal in ending Jim Crow in the South.
The Court’s ruling in Callais was so far-reaching that the Court’s three liberal justices warned in their dissent that it had left the Voting Rights Act “all but a dead letter.”
All five of Georgia’s Democratic-held congressional seats are majority-Black districts. Redistricting could place several of those seats in serious jeopardy. Perhaps the most vulnerable politician is US Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Albany), one of the few Black representatives serving a rural district in the South.
Kemp previously said it was too late to redraw Georgia’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections, but is now following in the footsteps of other Southern states who’ve raced to eliminate majority-Black districts.
Tennessee recently passed a map that dismantled majority-Black Memphis, splitting it across three congressional districts and eliminating the state’s only Democratic seat in the process. Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina are pursuing similar changes to their own maps.
Voting rights advocates and Democratic officials have increasingly taken to calling the multi-state effort “Jim Crow 2.0,” a deliberate echo of the systematic oppression of Black voters in the South following Reconstruction.
“We have seen this before. This is Jim Crow 2.0 unfolding in real time,” the Georgia Working Families Party said in a statement posted to Instagram. “Our ancestors marched, organized, bled, and died for the right to vote and to have that vote mean something. They sacrificed so much for future generations to be able to participate fully in a democracy. We dishonor their sacrifice if we stay silent now.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jason Esteves was more pointed in his criticism of Kemp specifically.
“Governor Kemp’s call for a special session to gerrymander Georgia’s maps is yet another display of Republicans’ unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump and a clear maneuver to dilute the voting power of Black voters in Georgia,” Esteves said in a statement.
“Make no mistake — Brian Kemp and Burt Jones are rushing this through during Kemp’s lame-duck year because they know that Democrats are poised to win the governor’s office this November,” Esteves added. “Republicans want to rig elections because they can’t win on their own policies.”
The timing has drawn particular scrutiny. Kemp is barred from seeking a third term as governor, and Democrats have argued that the redistricting push is an attempt to lock in Republican advantages before a potential change in the state’s leadership. Republicans have not yet released a proposed map, but the special session is expected to move quickly once lawmakers convene.
The outcome could have national implications for 2028: with Republicans’ House majority currently hanging on a razor-thin margin, every seat Georgia Democrats lose carries outsized consequences.
