Kemp plays the long game: Calls special session to guarantee a Republican congressional map in Georgia for the 2028 elections
The governor did not authorize modifying district lines before this year's midterm elections due to the risk of an adverse effect favoring Democrats, but he will lay out the electoral landscape for the next cycle.
Brian Kemp in Washington, D.C. in a file image
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp called an extraordinary legislative session on Wednesday to redraw the state's district maps with an eye on the 2028 general election. Other states, such as Texas, Utah, California, Florida, and Ohio, among others, opted to modify congressional maps from the 2024 midterms, amid the gerrymandering war in the current election cycle between Democrats and Republicans.
The move, announced just days before the state primary, follows the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 legislation that for decades required several Southern states to obtain federal authorization before changing their election rules.
Kemp is calling the state legislature into session on June 17, one day after the primary runoffs that will determine the final candidates for the contested Senate and gubernatorial elections. The proclamation expressly directs the Assembly to draw new maps in response to the Supreme Court ruling, the same ruling that has already prompted redistricting in other Southern states.
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The move by the Republican governor, who has already reached his term limit, would assure Republicans a favorable map no matter what happens this election year, where the GOP could lose ground in the Legislature and a Democrat could succeed him as governor of Georgia, a swing state.
It's still too early to tell how district lines will be drawn, but redistricting is likely to affect one of the five Democrats who make up Georgia's 14-member delegation to Congress.
The state joins a wave that already includes a new map implemented in Tennessee and expedited processes in Louisiana and Alabama, authorized by the Supreme Court to arrive in time for November. On the same day, after the local legislature rejected changing the district lines, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster called an extraordinary session with the same objective: eliminating the state's only Democratic constituency.
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