Georgia NAACP, residents challenge district map in county with all-white commission

Voting rights advocates in Meriwether County have filed a lawsuit challenging the districts drawn for local county commission seats, which they say illegally dilute the voting power of Black residents under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court Thursday, alleges that district maps enacted in 2022 have contributed […]

A lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday alleges that district maps enacted in 2022 have contributed to the lack of Black representation on the Meriwether County board of commissioners. Jill Nolin/Georgia Recorder

Voting rights advocates in Meriwether County have filed a lawsuit challenging the districts drawn for local county commission seats, which they say illegally dilute the voting power of Black residents under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court Thursday, alleges that district maps enacted in 2022 have contributed to the lack of Black representation on the board of commissioners, despite the fact that Black voters make up “a substantial percentage” of the county’s population. The Georgia NAACP, which according to the lawsuit has roughly 100 members who reside in the county, is one of the plaintiffs.

“We will not stand by and watch Black voters in Georgia be stripped of their right to fair representation,” Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs said in a statement, calling the maps “a direct attack on this community’s political power.”

Meriwether County is located about 50 miles south of Atlanta. Its five-member board of commissioners, which is tasked with adopting county policies, establishing a budget and maintaining roads, bridges and other infrastructure, is currently all white.

Hani Mirza, who serves as director of the power and democracy program at Advancement Project, a civil rights organization involved with the case, said the new maps have “had an immediate impact on Black representation at the county level in Meriwether County.” 

The new maps, the lawsuit says, were adopted over the objections of the county’s then-only Black commissioner, who is no longer in office.

In one district, Black representation has hovered around 50% before and after redistricting, but in another, the Black voting age population decreased from about 45% to less than 30%. None of the three Black candidates who have run for a county commission since the new maps took effect have been successful, according to the lawsuit. 

One remedy proposed in the complaint would redraw the maps to create two new Black-majority districts for the county commission. One district would span the north and central parts of the county, including towns like Greenville, Woodbury and Lone Oak, while the other would include southern Meriwether County areas like Manchester and Warm Springs.

Rev. James Clements, a Black Meriwether County resident and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said that the board of commissioners once included two Black members, and described the hopelessness members of the Black community feel as a result of the loss of representation on the commission.

Now some Black residents he’s talked to, Clements said in an interview with the Recorder, “don’t feel the need to even go to a commissioner meeting, because they don’t feel that their voice is going to be heard.”

Clements ran as a Democrat for a seat on the commission last year, losing to the Republican candidate by only 12 votes. But he says his involvement in the lawsuit “has nothing to do with” his own candidacy.

If a white candidate wins in a majority-minority district, “that’s because they’re the better candidate,” he said. “But we’d just like the opportunity to be able to be represented at the board of commissioners’ office.”

Meriwether Board of Elections and Election Supervisor Patty Threadgill did not respond to requests for comment.

However, the voting rights law that the lawsuit hinges on may itself be on shaky ground. Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to rehear arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a case filed by white voters in Louisiana challenging the 2024 congressional district maps that included two Black-majority districts. Voting rights advocates say the Supreme Court’s ruling has the potential to overturn a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial gerrymandering that dilutes minority voting power.

Mirza with the Advancement Project said he is monitoring the Supreme Court case.

“We’re, like others, watching to see what happens and will respond accordingly,” Mirza said.

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