As the pace of growth cooled over the past decade in Atlanta’s urban core, its political power has begun to ooze out to the suburbs.
Newly released population data put DeKalb and Fulton counties both at risk of seeing representation in the General Assembly shift to the suburbs.
Still, the impact could be more profound in Atlanta's city center, which could see its representation -- and its clout -- move outside the city limits as districts expand outward to meet population needs. Federal law would offer some protection to minority-majority districts in the state House and Senate, but the shift in the metro area’s center of gravity is clear.
"Financially, it would cost those communities that don't have as much representation when it comes to funding for local projects, projects important to those communities in the state budget," said Kennesaw State University professor Kerwin Swint, who is also a member of the board of Common Cause Georgia, a government watchdog group and a member of a state task force that in 2006 studied the possibility of creating an independent redistricting commission.
DeKalb and Fulton counties have the most to lose.
Data released earlier by the U.S. Census Bureau show that while both counties grew, the pace of their population increases fell well short of some of their suburban neighbors.
From 2000 to 2010, DeKalb’s population increased by 3.9 percent, and Fulton’s rose by nearly 13 percent.
Both counties trailed the state’s overall increase of 18 percent, and the counties that ring them both generally saw much higher growth: Gwinnett County jumped 37 percent, Cherokee County 51 percent, and Forsyth and Paulding counties both gained more than 75 percent.
Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said they plan to contest the census count. In Fulton’s case, the census set the population at 920,581. Previous estimates had projected 1 million or more.
Much is at stake if the numbers don’t change, Eaves said. With a high concentration of poverty in Atlanta, it has health care and elderly service needs that could be jeopardized by weakened representation in the Capitol.
"I will certainly hope that our local delegation will do all that it can to maintain the number of seats that are in place for the county," Eaves said.
Mapping the shift
The General Assembly will use the census data to redraw the state's 180 House districts and 56 Senate districts based on population shifts. With the state's population increasing to more than 9.6 million, each House district will need to include roughly 54,000 people and each Senate district about 173,000.
If a district hasn't grown, or grown fast enough, "it has to get population from somewhere else," said Rep. Roger Lane, R-Darien, the chairman of the House committee charged with redrawing districts.
If an existing district has lost population, the choices are limited. Residents can be siphoned from surrounding areas to boost a district's numbers, but only if those other districts are over the 54,000 goal for a House district.
All the state's urban centers have seen growth fail to keep pace with the state as a whole and face the same problem as Atlanta, Lane said.
Further complicating matters is the Voting Rights Act. Federal law generally prohibits reducing the number of districts that are majority black or another minority. That means when the maps are drawn, it could be white-majority districts that have to offer up residents for other districts.
State lawmakers will return to Atlanta at some point this summer to approve the new maps, and those votes could eventually seal the fate of a number of current legislators. While it has been generally expected that Middle and South Georgia would lose seats as the population shifted north, it was assumed that metro Atlanta would add seats. That is mostly true for the suburban counties outside DeKalb and Fulton.
Winners, losers
One estimate has southwest Georgia west of I-75 losing between two and three House seats and east of the interstate losing about two. In metro Atlanta, Gwinnett could gain two; Cherokee, Forsyth and Henry may each add a seat.
It's not entirely clear how the population shifts will shake out for the state's political parties. While 23 of the 28 House districts that lost population are held by Democrats, rural Republicans can expect to see some of their districts consumed by the redistricting process.
While it’s highly likely that DeKalb and Fulton could lose legislative seats, Cobb County’s overall growth of 13.2 percent leaves some of its districts at risk. For example:
- District 45 in Cobb, held now by Republican Matt Dollar, saw its population decline by 3.3 percent.
- And Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, saw his District 43, along the Cherokee County border, grow by just 0.04 percent -- a total of 16 people. Both are well short of the 54,000 goal.
Just across the county line, in Cherokee, Republican Rep. Sean Jerguson’s District 22 had one of the largest jumps in population, increasing by nearly 72 percent.
It has about 24,000 residents more than the 54,000 cut-off. When the final maps are drawn, Franklin could find his district stretching into Cherokee, making him vulnerable to a GOP primary challenge from the north.
Losses downplayed
Leaders of both parties have instructed their members not to discuss the process, one of the most political endeavors undertaken at the Capitol.
Careers can be made or crushed by redistricting, and often a federal court makes the final decision. Several legislators declined to speak about the process for fear of facing an eventual subpoena to testify about their comments.
Veteran Democrats from Fulton and DeKalb, however, are optimistic their delegations will remain intact when the new maps are complete and ready for use in the 2012 elections.
Some shifting may occur, though, said Rep. Howard Mosby, D-Atlanta, the current head of the DeKalb County delegation.
"We've got 19 seats in the House now," Mosby said. "I can't see how that number would change."
Staff writers Johnny Edwards, Michelle Shaw and Ernie Suggs contributed to this article.
Shifting seats
The 2010 census saw major changes in a number of state House districts. Here are the 10 districts that grew the most rapidly over the past decade and those that saw the greatest declines.
Biggest gains
District 105, Gwinnett, Rep. Donna Sheldon (R): 103.45%
District 107, Gwinnett-Walton, Rep. Len Walker (R): 99.72%
District 159, Chatham-Effingham, Rep. Ann Purcell (R): 92.02%
District 98, Gwinnett, Rep. Josh Clark (R): 86.79%
District 110, Henry-Butts-Newton, Rep. Andy Welch (R): 76.67%
Biggest drops
District 61, Fulton, Rep. Ralph Long (D): -19.11%
District 62, Clayton-Fulton, Rep. Joe Heckstall (D): -17.02%
District 60, DeKalb-Fulton-Clayton, Rep. Gloria Tinubu (D): -13.6%
District 133, Muscogee, Rep. Carolyn Hugley (D): -12.8%
District 121, Richmond, Rep. Henry Howard (D): -11.9%
What redistricting could mean to you
The General Assembly will meet in special session later this year to redraw the state’s 180 state House districts and 56 state Senate districts based on numbers from the 2010 U.S. census. Population growth in DeKalb and Fulton counties did not keep pace with some of their neighboring counties, which means residents in both counties could see their representation in the state Legislature shrink. Residents in Gwinnett County, though, could see the county add two seats in the state House, and it’s possible that Cherokee, Forsyth and Henry counties could each add a district.
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