Senate approves revision of districts

But dismissal of one case sparks partisan debate

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/20/04

With the General Assembly under federal court order to draw new election districts for legislators, the state Senate passed a new map for itself Friday.
State elections officials have testified that newly drawn districts would not give them enough time to prepare for those election dates.
 
During Friday's debate in the Senate, Democrats accused Republicans of being disingenuous in claiming that their newly proposed district lines respected incumbency and were blind to the politics of an area.
 
"This process has been significantly more open . . . than the process that went into this [preceding] map," drawn in 2002 when Democrats were in control, Senate Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Roswell) said.
 
"We rebuilt this state with fair maps," said Sen. Dan Lee (R-LaGrange), one of Gov. Sonny Perdue's floor leaders.
 
But Meyer von Bremen said, "The reality that we see is politics plays a major role in redistricting."
 
He acknowledged that politics played a key part in the map-drawing process in both 2001 and 2002 when his party was in charge of both House and Senate and the governor's office.
 
Senate Republicans are doing the same thing this year, Meyer von Bremen said. "To state there was no political motivation [in the new map] is an understatement. To state this was politically blind is wrong. This is a far cry from being politically blind," he said.
 
The final Senate map has just two incumbents in the same district, but Democrats charged that the GOP had given other Democratic senators unfamiliar districts and had harmed announced challengers to sitting Republicans.
 
For example, two black Democrats who had planned to run in separate seats in Augusta are in one district, with Republican incumbent Don Cheeks.
 
In northwest Georgia, former Sheriff Gary McConnell had planned to run against first-term Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome), but now McConnell is in a different district.
 
"There are all kinds of things that went into drawing these lines," Price eventually conceded. "Incumbency and political decisions were part of . . . the mix."