Creating majority-minority districts has sometimes made it easier for the Republicans to increase their overall share of the seats. But if Eric Holder has to approve any district-drawing, it may be impossible to satisfy him. There may be no way to create a second district that is heavily-enough black to be a sure thing for a black Democrat to win assuming the different parts of the district are contiguous to each other. So what happens if Holder refuses to accept any plan they come up with? There is potential for mischief there when you have an Attorney General who is only thinking in terms of benefiting “my people.”
In 1982 it went to court, with the court approving a plan.
It ended up postponing the election in GA-4 and GA-5, with
the primary being on everyone else’s election day and the general election for those two seats at the end of November.
I’m trying to figure out how that case (and one that triggered it?) went down. But, the attorney general (William French Smith of all people) never approved the Georgia legislature-approved plan. I don’t know whether the court came up with its own plan, one submitted by the US DOJ, or what.
Elliott Levitas ended up losing in 1984.
Yes, apparently "asshole" is a constituency now.