[학생에세이] The Implications of the New Decade's Political Changes

 

             Following the results of the 2020 Census, new borders for Georgia’s voting districts are to be created. This will have statewide and nationwide consequences for the next 10 years. As this is such an important process, it is important to fully grasp the implications of these events. 

             Georgia has a total of 14 congressional districts, with one congressman repsenting each one in the U.S. House of Repsentatives. The 2021 reapportionment of House seats left Georgia unchanged in the amount of repsentation it had. All that remains is for Georgia’s General Assembly to determine the regions that repsent our state. This is especially important for Georgia’s central districts. Currently, while some of Georgia’s southern districts can contain nearly 30 counties, the 5 closest to Atlanta are sometimes smaller than single counties. This is due to Georgia’s population being significantly more concentrated in its urban and suburban areas. This resulted in counties such as Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, and Dekalb being pided between three different voting districts. It is likely that some of these districts may be reformed due to Georgia’s population of 10.7 million in 2020, up from 9.7 million in 2010, with the majority of its growth in urban or suburban areas. 

             Georgia’s State House and State Senate districts are formed similarly to its congressional districts; less populated regions tend to be large while districts near Atlanta tend to be quite concentrated. However, the Georgia state legislature districts are much more convoluted than its national repsentation: there are 56 State Senate districts and 180 State House districts, which is significantly larger. This complicates the redistricting process as it becomes difficult to create nonpartisan districts.

It is likely that both the Republican and Democratic parties will attempt to create as many partisan districts in their favor as possible. This process is known as gerrymandering. The current majority party, the Republicans, will likely attempt to gain as many Republican districts as possible. The Democrats would likely attempt the same in their position. Though the gerrymandering process was declared illegal in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and racial gerrymandering was deemed unconstitutional by the Supme Court in Shaw v. Reno (1993), it is still practiced to an extent. While blatant gerrymandering in very unusually shaped voting districts will be found illegal, subtly creating a few more partisan districts often cannot be found as gerrymandering in court. Both the Democratic and Republican party have made the excuse that creating partisan districts were inevitable due to population and geographical issues to avoid lawsuits by the opposing party and so they are not held at fault.

To many voters, this practice seems to be one of malice: but we must understand that to give up the opportunity to gain political power is to willingly surrender power to the opposing party. As much as completely fair voting districts repsenting Georgia as a whole is desired, our current political system does not allow it. The most that can be done is for citizens to stay wary of excessive gerrymandering by one or both parties.