Keisha Lance Bottoms is vowing to veto any redrawn political district maps that intentionally target and weaken the voting power of Black Georgians if she’s elected governor in November.
Her remarks were in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 decision that said that political maps drawn based on race are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruling effectively nullified Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which made it illegal to create political maps that dilute Black voting power in the South, regardless of the mapmakers’ intent.
“Any map that dilutes voting of respective communities, I’ll veto,” the former Atlanta mayor told supporters Tuesday during a campaign stop in Columbus. “The fight is really going to be in the states right now.”
In fact, Georgia Republicans appear poised to outmaneuver Bottoms or the possibility of any Democratic governor blocking discriminatory maps.
GOP Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday issued a proclamation to convene a special legislation session on June 17 to redraw Georgia’s political maps this year. Doing so would allow Kemp to sign the maps into law while he’s still in office, preventing them from being blocked if a Democrat replaces him as governor.
Prior to Wednesday, Kemp said he would forgo redrawing the Peach State’s political maps this year despite calls from GOP gubernatorial candidates Rick Jackson and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to do sooner. The proclamation says the proposed maps wouldn’t take effect until the 2028 election cycle.
Kemp’s move makes Georgia the latest Republican-led state to announce plans to redraw its political maps ahead of the 2026 midterms in November.
At stake is the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the collective political will of Black voters in the South. Democrats in California are still deciding whether they will redraw the congressional maps they finalized late last year to help cancel out any gains Republicans receive from their redistricting efforts.
Bottoms declared she would block a discriminatory map from taking effect if she’s elected.
“The real fight and the real power rests within the states right now and how these maps are drawn,” Bottoms said. “ The will of the people at every turn just seems to be ignored.”
Bottoms’ strategy to protect voting rights
Bottoms unveiled a comprehensive plan to protect voting rights on Wednesday during a get-out-the-vote campaign stop in Atlanta. Her plan includes establishing a state-level voting rights law known as the Johnson-Lewis Voting Rights Act that would ban rules, maps, procedures, or election systems that restrict equal access to the ballot or dilute fair participation.
Named in part after civil rights champion John Lewis, the proposed law would also create an independent, statewide watchdog group known as the Georgia Voting Rights Commission to review voting changes and investigate complaints as well as collect and publish election data.
“It gives voters a place to turn when their rights are threatened and gives communities a stronger tool to fight suppression, dilution, intimidation, deception, obstruction, and discrimination,” Bottoms’ campaign said in a backgrounder. “For too long, voting-rights violations have been addressed only after damage is done. Georgia needs a proactive system that protects voters, identifies problems early, supports fair election administration.”
Bottoms’ law would also punish people who intimidate, harass, obstruct or interfere with people’s voting rights. Her plan underscored her promise to veto any proposed redistricting maps that dilute Black voting power.
“She will also use the full power of the governor’s office to challenge maps that crack, pack, divide, or silence communities for partisan advantage,” the campaign said. “That includes any attempt to target congressional districts where Black voters have built meaningful political power, including rural communities that have too often been ignored, divided, or pushed out of power.”
Bottoms’ voting rights agenda takes on added significance in Columbus, a predominantly Black city about 100 miles southwest of Atlanta that is located in U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop’s 2nd Congressional District.
Bishop, whose majority-Black district has been identified as a top GOP target for redistricting, has characterized the Supreme Court decision as the latest attack on the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“This decision ignores our country’s history of racism and reopens the door to the Jim Crow era, undemocratic tactics that suppressed and denied power to minority voters and communities,” Bishop said in an April 29 press release.
Former state Sen. Jason Esteves accused the court of advancing Trump’s mission to “gut voting rights” and “target Black voters across the country.”
“Make no mistake: Georgia Republicans are plotting to rig the system,” Esteves said in an emailed statement. “The fight for fair maps and equal representation in Georgia begins in this governor’s race, where it is essential that we elect a strong Democrat who will serve for two terms to oversee redistricting. That is my commitment to you.”
An appeal to Black male voters
While in Columbus on Tuesday, Bottoms said she wants to earn additional support from Black male voters, who tend to vote less frequently than their female counterparts. Trump has helped the Republican Party make marginal gains with Black men in recent election cycles, which Bottoms said is the Democratic Party’s fault.
“Shame on us for not being very clear about what our messaging is and how it matters to them,” she said. “I want to earn your support. Look at what I did when I was mayor of Atlanta, how I’ve worked to support our communities, how I’ve worked to support our small businesses.”
Local radio personality EJ Thomas was one of the Black men who attended the campaign event Tuesday. The host of “the Hotseat with EJ Thomas” podcast and 98.3 The Beat in Columbus said concerns of Black male voters in Georgia’s second-largest city include public safety and wealth inequality largely due to persistent racial wealth disparities and limited higher-wage workforce opportunities.
“Those are issues that we have everywhere,” said Thomas, who also expressed fatigue with broken promises from career politicians. “Let’s make sure that we hold them accountable,” he continued. “You don’t deserve a second or third time if you don’t get it right the first time.”
One elderly local resident, who declined to provide his name, told Capital B Atlanta he and his wife used to vote by mail before Georgia lawmakers increased limits on mail-in voting. He said he recently had to travel to a new polling precinct after being redistricted, but is determined to vote regardless.
I can’t let [down] my grandparents that stood and did different things to get us where we’re at,” he said. “I got to keep on voting. I push it down to the children too.”
Polls show Bottoms is the clear frontrunner in the Democratic Party’s May 19 gubernatorial primary. Her top primary competitors, including former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and Esteves are all positioning themselves to take on Bottoms in a June 16 runoff race that will take place if none of the candidates secure more than 50% of the vote on May 19.
Early voting in the May 19 primary race ends Friday.
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