The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia, and WilmerHale filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and an individual Georgia voter challenging newly drawn district lines for the General Assembly on the grounds that they violate Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act bans the drawing of legislative district lines that water down the voting strength of Georgia citizens who are Black or other communities of color. In the last decade, citizens who are Black drove Georgia’s significant population growth, yet the state Legislature failed to draw district lines that would allow these new voters to elect their preferred leaders.
According to the lawsuit, the Georgia General Assembly could have — and should have — drawn more than a half-dozen additional new Black-majority districts in light of the tremendous growth of the state’s Black population over the last decade.
