Tuesday on Political Rewind: Democrats are insisting that Georgia should have a 50-50 partisan split of congressional districts as redistricting is set to start next week at the state capitol. The GOP majority will likely reject this argument.
With a special state legislation session is less than a month away, All Things Considered host Rickey Bevington previews with GPB political reporter Stephen Fowler about what Georgians should expect to change in redistricting.
Wednesday on Political Rewind: Election candidates wonder if they can win a Republican primary contest in 2022 without former President Donald Trump’s backing in the aftermath of his raucous rally in Perry. Also, a draft map of new congressional districts in Georgia stirs up conversation.
A draft proposal of Georgia's new congressional boundaries released by Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Senate redistricting committee chair Sen. John Kennedy makes minimal changes, except for flipping the 6th Congressional District to a likely Republican seat.
Interviews with Georgia lawmakers involved with redistricting in previous years shine light on the complicated deliberations that go into the mapmaking — and the acknowledgement that maintaining power for the majority takes precedence over expressed interests of voters — so long as the law is being followed.
Tuesday on Political Rewind: Legal experts and political analysts are looking closely at what the Supreme Court’s refusal to act on a Texas abortion law means for the future of abortion rights and on its potential impact on 2022 election battles.
With census data now in the hands of state legislators, preparations for the upcoming reapportionment special session can begin. We spoke to a member of the House redistricting committee to hear what the learned from listening sessions with Georgians about how they’d like to see the process of drawing new maps unfold.
To say Georgia has changed over the last decade is an understatement, as a surge of new non-white residents flocking to urban and suburban cores has altered the balance of political power in a once-reliably white, Republican and rural-centric state.
When Georgia lawmakers convene this fall to draw new legislative boundaries, they will bring a political eye to the process, colored by partisanship and a distinct self-interest in the outcome.
GPB News and the Georgia News Lab transcribed more than 18 hours of public comment offered by 289 people at 10 hearings across the state and online to track what Georgians are asking for in the mapmaking process.
Monday on Political Rewind: Officials continue to resist establishing a statewide procedure for mitigating the possible spread of COVID-19 in schools. Cases are rising in some systems in the first week of classes. In Atlanta, public schools will begin offering vaccines to middle and high school students next week.
For months, COVID-19 and interference by Trump officials delayed the release of new census demographic data used to redraw voting districts, forcing some state and local elections to be pushed back.
