ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 7, 1996 TAG: 9602070046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press|
Georgia's three-year battle over congressional redistricting neared an end Tuesday as the Supreme Court let stand a redrawn map that reduces the number of majority-black districts from three to one.
The action makes it all but certain that the map drawn last year by a three-judge federal panel will be used in Georgia's congressional elections this year, forcing two of the state's three black congressmen to run in majority-white districts.
In a one-sentence order, the justices denied an emergency appeal from voters who supported the map with three majority-black districts that was enacted in 1992 by the Georgia Legislature, under pressure from the Justice Department. The voters had asked Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who handles emergency matters from Georgia, to shelve the court-drawn map until the full court could consider a formal challenge. Kennedy referred the request to the full court. ``This is probably, as a practical matter, the end of the debate on this subject,'' said Georgia Attorney General Mike Bowers, ``although there is still a possibility the Supreme Court can take the case.''
Laughlin McDonald, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who filed the appeal on behalf of black and white voters, said he would press ahead with an underlying appeal.But even if the court agrees to hear it, it likely would not be resolved in time to change the map for this year's elections.
If the high court doesn't hear it, he said, ``it will take us back to the days prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, when legislative bodies were composed of whites, and blacks were second-class voters, if that.''
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