GOP Congressman Calls for Georgia To ‘Suspend the House Races’ So State Can Draw Republican-Friendly Map Before Election

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) said Georgia should “suspend” the state’s House primaries so that the Republican-controlled legislature can redraw the state’s electoral map in a more GOP-friendly way.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a severe blow to Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, while also sometimes requiring the consideration of race when redistricting, to ensure fair representation for racial minorities.

But in Wednesday’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the Voting Rights Act does not require Louisiana to consider race as the basis when drawing its electoral maps. The state has six congressional districts, two of which are majority-minority districts, as about one-third of residents in the state are Black. But after Callais, Louisiana’s Republican-controlled government is looking to redraw the state’s map and eliminate at least one of those two districts.

Carter appeared on Newsmax on Tuesday, where he urged the Republican-controlled legislature in Georgia to pursue similar measures – even though early voting has already started ahead of the state’s May 19 primaries. The state has 14 congressional districts, four of which are held by Democrats. A fifth was until last month, when 80-year-old Rep. David Scott died while seeking reelection.

Carter said:

First of all, I applaud the Supreme Court for the decision they made. They made the right decision. Race should never be considered in drawing congressional districts. And I’m glad that Tennessee and Alabama are redrawing their districts. And I think that Georgia should do the same thing. Yes, we have started early voting. And yes, it would be inconvenient. But at the same time, it’s never too late to do the right thing. And the right thing is for the governor and for the legislature to call a special session to redistrict so that Georgians will be represented by people who represent their values. We shouldn’t have to suffer through the next two years just because it’s inconvenient to do it now.

We need to suspend the House races, and we need to go ahead and redistrict so that Georgians would be represented in the next two years by people who represent their values.

The redistricting after the Callais decision is part of a rare, mid-decade gerrymandering war that Texas Republicans set off last year by redrawing its map in the hopes of gaining up to five seats. California responded in November by enacting a ballot measure that would gerrymander several Republicans out of Congress.

Watch above via Newsmax.

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