Unexpected

Okay, the election just got interesting.

WXIA | Court: Back to the Drawing Board
A three-judge federal panel on Tuesday overturned Georgia's redistricting plans for the state House and Senate, saying they violated the principle of one person, one vote.

The court enjoined the state from using the maps in legislative elections this summer and fall and gave the Legislature until March 1 to draw new maps or face the possibility the court might do it.

The Legislature currently is in session but the ruling caught legislative leaders without a plan for dealing with the problem.

...The maps were drawn following the 2000 Census when Democrats held majorities in both houses and used their clout to try to cement their majority at the expense of Republicans.

One strategy was to shift black voters from districts in which they were an overwhelming majority to adjacent, Republican-leaning districts where they might help elect Democrats.

...In a 91-page decision, Judges William C. O'Kelley, Stanley Marcus and Charles A. Pannell Jr. noted that there is a 9.98 percent population deviation between districts in the House and Senate maps and declared that lawmakers "made no effort to make the districts as nearly of equal population as was practicable."

"Rather, we have found that the deviations were systematically and intentionally created (1) to allow rural southern Georgia and inner-city Atlanta to maintain their legislative influence even as their rate of population growth lags behind that of the rest of the state; and (2) to protect Democratic incumbents."

Well, yeah, we knew that. But I never expected the court to agree.

That ought to keep the Legislature out of trouble for a little while.