UPDATE: This article was updated to reflect Gov. Brian Kemp’s approval of the maps.

ATLANTA — With redrawn state House, Senate and congressional districts now approved by Georgia lawmakers, their fate remains unknown as the maps ultimately head back to court.

The Republican-drawn maps were approved during a week-long special session and were signed off on by Gov. Brian Kemp on Dec. 8, the court-issued deadline.  

Ultimately, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Jones — who said the original maps discriminated against Black voters — must give his final approval.

Democrats and many who spoke against the proposals said the district maps still dilute the Black voting power by unnecessarily altering Democrat districts, which are typically supported by Black voters.

“The pen was once again used to dilute Black power,” Rep. Greg Kennard of Lawrenceville in Gwinnett County, which under the proposed congressional district is divided into four districts. “I’m just so disheartened that 60 years later, after the Voting Rights Act has passed, the shenanigans continue. Unfortunately, we are not in a post-racial society. Racism has just shapeshifted.”

Georgia’s population grew by over 1 million people from 2010 to 2020, all of it in the minority populations. Half of that growth was in the Black populations and majority of it in the metro Atlanta region.

Jones ordered that a new majority-Black congressional district be added in the west-metro Atlanta areas of Cobb, Douglas, Fayette and Fulton counties.

“Georgia is a purple state, a swing state and fair maps should reflect that 50/50 political landscape,” Kennard said. “How can you with a straight face draw a 9-5 (Republican majority) congressional map that’s actually one more than the previous 8-6 maps. It’s laughable.”

The Republican proposal does add the new majority-Black district as ordered by Jones; District 6 becomes a new majority-Black district and includes parts of Cobb, Douglas Fulton and Fayette counties.

However, Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to maintain its 9-5 congressional lead by unnecessarily altering the diverse Democratic northeast-metro Atlanta District 7, held by Black Congresswoman Lucy McBath.

The proposal shifts District 7 significantly north to include parts of north Fulton, Forsyth, Dawson, Cherokee, Hall and Lumpkin counties — the majority of them rural counties.

While not a majority Black district currently, District 7 is a majority-minority district. According to 2022 U.S. Census data, an estimated 32% of the district identified as white; 31% identified as Black; 22% identified as Hispanic; and 13% Asian.

Minority Whip Rep. Sam Park, D-Lawrenceville, said the proposal violates Jones’s order by breaking up minority opportunity districts.

In part, pages 509-510 of Jones’s order states: “The state cannot remedy the Section Two violations described herein by eliminating minority-opportunity districts elsewhere in the plan… Acceptable remedy must completely remedy the prior dilution of voting of minority voting strength and fully provide equal opportunity for my citizens to participate and to elect candidates of their choice.”

The proposed District 7 contains 67% white voters and only 33% minority.

“This open defiance of a federal court order is alarming,” Park said. “It is reminiscent of the refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election that led to the January 6 insurrection.”

Elberton Republican Rob Leverett, chair of the House Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee, accused Democrats of misconstruing Jones’s language.

He suggested that Jones was specifically talking about Black residents, not all minority residents, when referring to minority opportunity districts.

“That is not a legally defined term. The term gets used loosely in different contexts,” Leverette said. “In the context of this case, the minority that was being discussed whose rights were trying to be vindicated were Black voters.”

Leverette continued: “He is writing in the context of a case in which the only claims have involved Black voters. They didn’t involve other minorities and they didn’t involve this somewhat novel and largely rejected theory that you can take different people from different minorities and add them up to get above 50% in a potential proposed district.”

Bishop Reginald T. Jackson of the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), which is part of the lawsuit challenging the state’s district maps, is calling on Kemp to reject what he called are “biased maps.”

“We oppose these partisan attempts not only because it was approved on a party-line vote, but because the substance continues to deliberately minimize and negate the voting strength of Black voters in Georgia,” Jackson said. “If (Kemp) does not get involved, he will be making an unneeded and hurtful statement that White voters are more important than Black voters.

Jones also ordered Georgia lawmakers to add two additional majority-Black Senate districts in south-metro Atlanta, and five majority Black House districts, most of them in metro Atlanta.

Like the congressional map, critics accused Republicans of partisan gerrymandering, a practice that is not illegal but often denounced.

Critics say the Senate proposal unnecessarily shifts District 6 — held by Democrat Jason Esteves of Atlanta — and District 42 — held by Democrat Sen. Elena Parent into majority Black areas. The districts are currently in majority white Democrat areas. Republicans maintain its 33-23 majority under the proposal.

The House proposal pairs three sets of Democrats into the same district and one pair of Republicans. House Republicans currently have a 102-78 majority over Democrats.

According to. a Dec. 6 order from Jones, plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging the maps have until noon Dec. 12 to file any objections to the new proposals, with defendants allowed to file a response before Dec. 19. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 20 at 9 a.m. in courtroom 1907 of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and United States Courthouse.