Lawmakers approve new political boundaries

Senators voted 35-18 for their new maps, with all Democrats present voting no. The House and Senate now swap plans, although it is unlikely changes will be made before the plans reach Gov. Nathan Deal's desk. House members are unlikely to toy with Senate plans, and vice versa.

Lawmakers are expected next week to turn their attention to congressional maps. The state, thanks to growth recorded in last year's census, will gain a 14th seat in the U.S. House. The congressional maps will reflect that new seat and make other changes to the traditional 13 districts.

With the deck stacked against them, Democrats in both chambers laid out the beginnings of a legal argument against the new map and how it rearranged the state's political districts.

In a "minority report" written to refute Senate Reapportionment Chairman Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, Democrats said the map diminished the ability of minority voters to elect candidates of their choice. The Voting Rights Act calls such a violation "retrogression."

Their examples in the Senate included District 14, which is being moved out of south Georgia. It is 43 percent African American, but has been redrawn to be only 9 percent African American.

Waynesboro-based District 23, now 40 percent African American, has been redrawn to be 34 percent. Milledgeville-based District 25, currently at 34 percent, is now 29 percent. And in south Cobb's District 6, which is currently majority non-white, the included African American population would fall from 38 percent to 23 percent.

Democrats also charged that Republicans in control of the process were "packing," a term that means they want to cram as many like-minded voters into as few districts as possible in an attempt to dilute their overall voting strength. Their examples included changes in Fulton, Bibb and Henry counties that strengthen Republican representation on local delegations of lawmakers.

The map, said Senate Minority Leader Steven Henson, D-Tucker, "deliberately changes the composition of some local delegations, resulting in majority-minority, Democratic counties now being controlled by white Republican senators."

Sen. Horacena Tate, D- Atlanta, said Republicans relied on counsel that the Voting Rights Act did not protect districts which had a less than 50 percent African American population. "This is a choice by the committee chair [Seabaugh]," she said. "This choice twists the Voting Rights Act beyond recognition. We are choosing to take a step back."

Seabaugh, however, denied those charges. Starting with a nearly 40-minute monologue, Seabaugh accused Democrats of whining as he went step by step through comparisons of what is happening now  compared to 10 years ago, when Democrats controlled the process and were taken to court.

That plan, he said, "was egregious. It fractured this state by splitting 81 counties, [a] pretty effective way to destroy your competition." By contrast, he said, the map this time was as equitable as he could make it. "I know there is an intent to find some sinister action but it just didn't happen," Seabaugh said. "The agony I have gone through to work to find a way -- I wanted 56 members of the Senate to vote for the redistricting plan."

In the House, the line of discourse followed much the same path. Rep. Roger Lane, R-Darien, the chairman of the House redistricting committee, said the House maps were drawn in the open and with "input from both the minority party and the majority [and was] the most transparent, open process in the history of Georgia."

But Democrats said the GOP plan "gerrymandered based on race."

Rep. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, is paired in the new map with fellow Democratic Rep. Scott Holcomb of Atlanta, meaning they would have to run against one another in 2012. Parent said the Republican map features districts in north Georgia that "are all roundish or squarish or appropriate looking. As your eyes slide downward into Morningside, Midtown and south, you see a series of lines. They look like stripes or snakes. They look nothing like the districts to the north. These districts are not compact, do not represent communities of interest."

Parent said that Republicans used race "as the sole criteria for drawing 49 districts to the exclusion of redistricting guidelines as articulated by the Supreme Court." That, she said, is enough to consider the maps unconstitutional.

Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, was more succinct about the process.

"I have no problem being [a member of the] minority and getting a spanking," he said. "That's politics. What I didn't want was a full beatdown."

The process caused friction among Democrats. Majority Whip Rep. Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, and Minority Leader Rep. Stacey Abrams, D-Atlanta, continued their contentious exchange from a committee hearing earlier this week. Lindsey said some Democrats would support the maps but won't vote for them out of fear of political retribution.

Lindsey displayed on giant screens in the House chamber a copy of an e-mail Abrams sent her caucus warning that a vote in favor of the Republican plan could lead to primary opposition next year.

Democrats, Lindsey said, aren't publicly supporting the maps "not because these aren't fair maps, it's because they've been threatened with their political future if they vote for it."

Abrams said it was not a threat. She also did not back off the message.

"I've said to every member of the House Democratic caucus that if you believe your individual district is more important than the rights of this state you no longer represent" the Democratic Party's ideals, Abrams said. "They have an absolute right to change their mind and if they do so they can join other people and change their party."