One person, one vote case still pending against Georgia plan

Web posted Tuesday, September 2, 2003
By Dick Pettys | Associated Press

ATLANTA -- The state has failed to persuade a three-judge federal panel in Atlanta to dismiss a new lawsuit challenging the way Georgia lawmakers drew state Senate districts in 2001.

But in a decision late last week, the panel postponed further proceedings in the case for several months while a court in Washington acts on a separate challenge.

At issue in the Atlanta case is a lawsuit filed this year by more than two dozen Republicans who claim the districts drawn two years ago are unconstitutional because they do not ensure that all districts have the same numbers of people under the one person, one vote principle.

The older case in Washington turns on the question of whether lawmakers illegally diluted minority voting strength with the Senate map, which was designed to maximize the influence of the Democrats who drew it.

Democrats held majorities in both houses of the Legislature during the 2001 redistricting session and used their clout to try to cement their political power at the expense of Republicans.

One strategy was to shift black voters from districts in which they were an overwhelming majority to adjacent, Republican-leaning districts where they might help elect Democrats.

The strategy helped Democrats retain a narrow majority in the 2002 election, but after his surprise victory in the governor's race Republican Sonny Perdue persuaded four Democrats to switch parties and swing control of that chamber to the GOP.

The map used in the 2002 elections was actually the second one Democrats had drawn. An earlier version, slightly more favorable to their cause, had been turned down by a special court in Washington.

Since then, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the court used the wrong analysis and instructed the judges to look at the case again, using different criteria.

That is the decision the Atlanta court is awaiting, because it will determine whether the state reverts to the first plan Democrats drew for the Senate or must stay with the one used in the 2002 elections.

The Atlanta court said the Washington court needs to rule first, "otherwise we would face the very real prospect of issuing an advisory opinion about a plan no longer extant."

--From the Wednesday, September 3, 2003 online edition of the Augusta Chronicle