Gov. Brian Kemp on Friday signed into law a controversial Gwinnett County Commission redistricting map and a new map for the Gwinnett County Board of Education.
The county commission map passed the General Assembly a week ago after it was redrawn by Rep. Bonnie Rich, R-Suwanee, who drastically changed the map introduced by the Democratic majority of the Gwinnett legislative delegation.
Redistricting occurs every 10 years by law based on the latest census results. The General Assembly typically defers to local delegations in approving local maps. Democrats blasted Republicans’ deviation from that process in Gwinnett, which in the past four years flipped from a completely Republican commission to a completely Democratic one.
The commission and Democratic legislators proposed a map that would minimally change current district lines. The Republican map instead created a more conservative District 4 in the northern part of the county. Its boundaries are similar to the state Senate district represented by Clint Dixon, a Buford Republican who won in 2020 with 56% of the vote.
District 4 is on the ballot this year. It is currently represented by Marlene Fosque, the first Black commissioner in Gwinnett, and still includes her residence. Qualifying begins March 7.
The Gwinnett County Board of Education’s redistricting map makes minimal changes to existing boundaries. Only 27,000 of Gwinnett’s nearly 1 million residents will end up in different school board districts. The map determines which school board races residents can vote in but does not impact which campuses students attend.
The General Assembly has approved a separate bill to make Gwinnett school board elections nonpartisan, which would place school board races on the ballot this May instead of November.
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