ICYMI: NRF Calls on Federal Court to Uphold Voting Rights Act Enforcement in Georgia

For Immediate Release
January 23, 2025
Contact
Madia Coleman
coleman@redistrictingfoundation.org

Washington, D.C. – Today, oral arguments took place before the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Grant v. Raffensperger and Pendergrass v. Raffensperger, a redistricting lawsuit that could determine the fate of Georgia’s legislative and congressional maps. The National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) initiated both lawsuits, in which the district court determined that Georgia’s 2021 congressional and state legislative maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Those decisions are being appealed by the Georgia Secretary of State.

Yesterday, leading up to the oral argument, the NRF hosted a press call featuring the organization’s executive director, Marina Jenkins, to preview the case. 

Excerpts from remarks as delivered by Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the NRF:

“Black Georgians continue to be underrepresented politically to this current day. This is not a question of what happened in our history, this is happening now and still impacting voters to this day.”

“As the district court already established, Georgia’s enacted legislative and congressional maps violated Section 2. The 11th Circuit should affirm that decision and let Georgians address this violation.”

“What’s happening in Georgia is part of a larger, concerted effort by anti-democratic forces to use the courts to dismantle Section 2 of the VRA. We’re seeing these same arguments in states like Louisiana and Alabama to overturn newly enacted fair maps and deprive Black voters of their rightful and hard-fought representation.”

“Why is this happening? Section 2 protects against vote dilution and these anti-democratic forces are doing all they can to enact egregious gerrymanders wherever they can, even if it means undermining the crown jewel of the Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Rights Act.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

Going into the 2021 redistricting cycle, the 2020 census data showed that Georgia’s white population decreased by over 4 percent, while Georgia’s Black population grew by more than 15 percent and now composes more than 33 percent of the state’s population. Despite the growth in the Black population in the metro Atlanta area and persistent racially polarized voting between white and Black Georgians, Georgia enacted a congressional map that overrepresented the state’s white population and diluted Black voting power. The NRF promptly initiated legal challenges against these maps, arguing that Georgia’s congressional and state legislative maps all violated Section 2 of the VRA.

Following the the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 landmark decision in Allen v. Milligan, which upheld Section 2, the VRA was enforced by the courts in multiple states, including Georgia, where a lower federal court struck down the state’s congressional and state legislative maps and ordered the General Assembly to enact new maps to comply with the VRA. The state of Georgia then enacted new congressional and state legislative maps in November 2023. 

Georgia appealed the district court’s decision to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing that Georgia’s 2021 congressional and state legislative maps did not violate the VRA and attempting to revert the state’s current maps back to those gerrymanders. This is similar to other pending legal challenges in states like Louisiana and Alabama, where anti-democracy forces are now attempting to reverse new VRA-compliant maps. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in this case will determine the future of Georgia’s congressional and state legislative maps. To learn more about the NRF’s work, click here. 

###