The U.S. Census is completed and now it's time for Georgia to draw state Senate, state House, and Congressional electoral lines.
The Census and redistricting happen every 10 years. State lawmakers are wrapping up hearings for public input.
Listen to your favorite News/Talk station now on Audacy.
Ken Lawler, Board Chair of Fair Districts GA, wants the redrawing process to be more transparent. "The legislature does not release the information about how they built the maps", says Lawler adding, "we don't have a lot of laws governing the production of maps." The focus of Fair Districts GA, according to its webpage, "is to fight gerrymandering, the practice of drawing legislative district lines to favor one group over another."
The Republican-led Georgia General Assembly, according to Lawler, has a lot of leeway in how they draw the maps. He adds, "in the past, as we've seen over the last 20 years, that has allowed the majority party, democrats in 2001 and the republicans since then, to draw the maps in their favor." The advocacy campaign this year, says Lawler, is a big public-pressure campaign. "It's to convince the public to help convince the legislature to do things fairly."
Nichola Hines, who leads the League of Women Voters of Atlanta-Fulton County says "you can turn around today and feel your state senator is xyz and tomorrow it could be someone else. Your neighbor could have different representation so you get confused when it's not fair."
Lawler says public involvement is key. "A lot of people are speaking up to say 'we want fair maps', and we're hoping to define what a fair map looks like in the first place."
Audacy's Maria Boynton moderated a LWVAF forum on redistricting and reapportionment this week.
Lawler, along with Angela Brown, Executive Director of ATLcounts Census 2020, and Christopher Bruce, Political Director of ACLU of Georgia, discussed redistricting during the forum aimed at educating, empowering, and engaging the community.
Related
Related
