So what really made GOP lawmakers balk at redistricting?

By Jill Nolin | Editor

Georgia Republicans were confronted with a fundamental mismatch when it comes to redistricting.

They weren’t going to reap the benefits of new maps until 2028, but they were going to face the risk of a political backlash this November.

Add the general discomfort that redistricting always creates, and by the time a special session began Wednesday, talk had been circulating for days that rank-and-file Republican lawmakers were balking.

After months of tension between the city of Social Circle and the federal government, the city announced in a press release Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will abandon its plan to convert an industrial warehouse into a 10,000-bed immigration detention center in the rural community. 

The department’s apparent decision to discontinue the detention center’s development comes a month after the city of Social Circle, which is about an hour east of Atlanta, filed a lawsuit against DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. According to the complaint, lawyers representing Social Circle called on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia to halt further action on the detention center construction, citing city infrastructure concerns. 

By Maya Homan

Georgia lawmakers have advanced a bill extending the deadline to remove QR codes from Georgia’s ballots to 2028, taking their first official step during the special session to rectify a problem that threatened to destabilize the state’s midterm elections.

The bill passed out of the Senate Ethics Committee in an 8-4 vote along party lines Thursday morning. Sen. Max Burns, a Sylvania Republican who sponsored the bill, said the measure was the result of a compromise between the House, Senate and governor’s office, and resisted attempts from Democrats on the committee to amend the language. 

By Mary Landers, The Current

Georgia’s 159 counties are recounting votes cast in the May 19 Republican primary for the District 3 Public Service Commission.

Fitz Johnson won that race, beating Brandon Martin by just 2,947 votes. That put the vote spread within the 0.5% margin that allows for a recount by Georgia law. Martin requested the recheck on June 5, the same day the race was certified.

By Jonathan Shorman

U.S. Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday to require Congress to sign off on any deployment of federal troops to the polls, as President Donald Trump and his administration refuse to rule out the idea.

Fears of troops or other federal agents at voting sites have long loomed over the approaching midterm elections in November. Democrats and voting rights advocates have grown alarmed in recent months as Trump has publicly entertained the possibility. Other administration officials have mocked or sidestepped questions about possible deployments.

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