Georgia’s 6th congressional district has long been considered a classic affluent suburban district in the South–that is, a district where Democrats usually get shot. That’s a big reason Jon Ossoff turned a lot of heads when he came just a few thousand votes short of taking the seat once represented by Newt Gingrich in a single round. But to hear at least one Republican state lawmaker talk, Ossoff still has a steep hill to climb in order to upend Republican challenger Karen Handel. He was caught on tape all but announcing that the district was drawn to deny black voters a voice.
On the day before the election, DNC chairman Tom Perez drew a lot of hackles when he told MSNBC that Ossoff is swimming upstream in the 6th because “the Republicans in Georgia gerrymandered the heck out of it.” But the folks at Shareblue discovered evidence that strongly suggests Perez wasn’t just blowing smoke. Just three days before the election, Republican state senator Fran Millar, who represents much of the DeKalb County portion of the district, had an unusually candid moment at a breakfast for DeKalb County Republicans.
“I’ll be very blunt: These lines were not drawn to get Hank Johnson’s protégé to be my representative. And you didn’t hear that. They were not drawn for that purpose, OK? They were not drawn for that purpose.”
Millar was referring to Hank Johnson, whose 4th District takes in the bulk of DeKalb County. This district is a heavily Democratic, black-majority district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+24–the seventh-most Democratic district in the South. In contrast, the 6th has a PVI of R+8.
Once word got out about Millar’s comments, he was deservedly slammed up and down on Twitter.
Hey @Fran_Millar guess what? We *did* hear you say GA district lines gerrymandered for minority @GOP win. Now you'll be hearing from Court
— Professor Fate (@Professor_Fate_) April 17, 2017
Now I see why Senator Fran Millar is doing a smear campaign against Jon Ossoff. We can't expect much from a 45 supporter, can we.#voteossoff pic.twitter.com/GZOWriMuMy
— Social Stability (@socialstability) April 17, 2017
A comparison of the current map with past maps seems to bear this out. After the 2000 Census, the 4th was drawn as a relatively compact district covering nearly all of DeKalb County.
However, after the Republicans took complete control of state government in 2004, they conducted a mid-decade redistricting that took effect with the 2006 election. Admittedly, the 2000 map, drawn by Democrats, was pretty ugly in a number of places. For instance, the new 13th stretched like a Rorschach ink blot south of Atlanta. However, the new map replaced one gerrymander with another. One of the worst offenders was the 4th. The new map shifted much of northern DeKalb County–including Ossoff’s hometown in Northlake–to the 6th. To make up for the loss in population, the 4th was spread into Rockdale County, which like DeKalb is majority black. It also took in part of Newton County on Atlanta’s southern fringe.
The current map is almost identical, though the boundary was pushed just a few miles to the south.
Before 2007, the 4th was already dominated by black Democrats. It has been represented by black congress(wo)men since its creation in 1993 as the 11th District; it was renumbered as the 4th after its original Atlanta-to-Savannah version was thrown out as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. It’s hard not to conclude that the Georgia state legislature tried to pack as many blacks and as many Democrats into the 4th as possible in order to ensure the neighboring 6th and 7th Districts would stay Republican.
In other words–Millar wasn’t just blowing smoke. It’s hard not to conclude that by blowing off Ossoff as a “protégé” of a black Democrat, he was suggesting that there weren’t enough blacks in this district to push Ossoff over the finish line. Sounds a lot like a dog whistle.
It’s not the first time that Millar has tipped his hand about voting rights. Back in 2014, he tried to shut down Sunday voting at a DeKalb County mall because it was located in an area “dominated by African American shoppers and it is near several large African American mega churches.”
Apparently Millar doesn’t know that when an area’s demographics start changing, there’s only so much packing and cracking you can do to keep a seat from flipping. The 2016 election in Georgia was a textbook example. Before 2016, Republican presidential candidates had carried the 6th in landslides ever since its creation in 1993. The district that sent Gingrich to Congress for his first seven terms covered an area south of Atlanta. That version of the 6th was dismantled after the 1990 Census; a new 6th was created north of Atlanta to get rid of Gingrich, but Gingrich moved there and won it.
However, in 2016, amid the Atlanta suburbs undergoing a dramatic shift from red to blue, the 6th went from a 61-37 win for Mitt Romney in 2012 to only a 48-46 win for Trump. That 13-point swing is the biggest reason that the Democrats have high hopes of taking a seat that had never even been on the radar screen since it was created almost a quarter-century ago.
Millar may think that this district isn’t black enough to elect a Democrat. But it was clear even before Ossoff’s near-miss that this isn’t the same district that gave us Gingrich, now-Senator Johnny Isakson, and Price. Given current trends, even if Ossoff doesn’t win this time, at some point Millar is going to wind up choking on his words. But there’s every reason to make Millar choke on his words now–and the best way to do that is to help Ossoff on June 20. Click here to contribute.
(featured image courtesy Ossoff’s Facebook)
