First came Congress. Now a national redistricting battle may turn to statehouses and city councils

A woman leaves a voting center after voting, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Marietta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)2026-06-07T04:06:47Z After a blitz of congressional redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, a national battle for partisan control is about to enter a new phase that could affect representation on everything from tax rates to social safety net programs, teacher salaries, housing regulations and local road repairs. Georgia’s Republican-led Legislature will convene June 17 for a special session focused on redistricting for the 2028 elections. The agenda includes new voting districts not only for Congress, but also for the state House and Senate — and potentially even the state’s utility regulatory commission. It will mark the first time since a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling weakened minority voting protections that a state legislature will attempt to redraw its own districts. Mississippi Republicans and New York Democrats also could undertake legislative redistricting before their 2027 and 2028 elections, respectively. Ir remains to be seen, though, how many legislatures will follow, and whether the outburst of mid-decade redistricting will extend down to county commissions, city councils and school boards that make myriad decisions affecting people’s lives. The impact could be widespread.“The stakes here are not political, they are deeply human,” said Joe Kennedy III, founder of Groundwork Project, a nonprofit that supports local civil rights and democracy organizations. What’s fueling the redistricting movement?Voting district boundaries typically are redrawn once a decade after each U.S. census to account for population changes. But last summer, President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans to redraw congressional districts to try to win additional seats in the midterm elections. Other states followed with their own partisan gerrymandering.Then a 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in late April jumpstarted even more redistricting. The court struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana as an illegal racial gerrymander, providing grounds for Republicans in other states to reshape districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Read More Why is Georgia redrawing its districts?A federal judge ruled in 2023 that some of Georgia’s congressional, state Senate and state House districts were drawn in a racially discriminatory manner. The Legislature quickly approved revised maps with new majority-Black districts, though they resulted in little change to Republican majorities in the 2024 elections. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has called lawmakers into special session to again redraw districts in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Louisiana case. That could allow Republicans to undo the court-ordered changes they made in 2023 and potentially redraw other Democratic-held minority districts to the GOP’s advantage. Republicans have yet to unveil details of their plans. But Democratic state Rep. Tanya Miller, who is running for attorney general, denounced the upcoming redistricting as a means of “rigging maps to maintain power.” How many seats are at stake?Several months before the Supreme Court ruling, a report by Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter forecast that Republicans in 10 Southern states could eliminate 191 Democratic-held legislative seats — including 140 districts with Black or Hispanic majorities — if the Supreme Court gutted federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. “If anything, our report was an understatement,” Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive director of Black Voters Matter, recently told The Associated Press. “What’s at stake is the future of this democracy.”Other analysts don’t expect that many seats to be redistricted. But they do expect the Supreme Court’s decision to ripple through states. “We’re going to potentially see a lot of frenzied efforts at every level, including at the local level, to try out undoing district maps and configurations that have performed quite well in providing improved representation for communities of color,” said Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Washington office of the Brennan Center for Justice. What states have pending court cases?The precedent from the recent Supreme Court decision already is being applied in several states. In light of the ruling, a federal appeals court is allowing Alabama to use a state Senate map approved by Republican lawmakers in this year’s election instead of one imposed by a federal judge who found the state had diluted the voting power of Black residents. The change affects two state Senate districts in the Montgomery area. The Supreme Court has sent legislative redistricting cases filed on behalf of Black voters in Mississippi and Native Americans in North Dakota back to lower courts for further consideration in light of its Louisiana decision. The Washington attorney general has asked the Supreme Court to do the same for legislative redist

A woman leaves a voting center after voting, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Marietta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)2026-06-07T04:06:47Z After a blitz of congressional redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, a national battle for partisan control is about to enter a new phase that could affect representation on everything from tax rates to social safety net…

A woman leaves a voting center after voting, Tuesday, May 19, 2026, in Marietta, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)2026-06-07T04:06:47Z After a blitz of congressional redistricting ahead of the midterm elections, a national battle for partisan control is about to enter a new phase that could affect representation on everything from tax rates to social safety net programs, teacher salaries, housing regulations and local road repairs. Georgia’s Republican-led Legislature will convene June 17 for a special session focused on redistricting for the 2028 elections. The agenda includes…