Georgia lawmakers to return June 17 for redistricting special session

Brian Kemp is bringing Georgia lawmakers back to the Capitol on June 17 for a special session that could reshape the state’s political map for the 2028 cycle and settle a separate voting-system deadline before it takes effect.

The session puts redistricting at the center of a fight over power, with Republicans moving to redraw congressional, state House and state Senate lines after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision. Georgia’s 2021 maps were already struck down by a federal judge for violating the Voting Rights Act, and the state later adopted remedial maps. Now Kemp wants lawmakers to act again, even as he has said it is too late to change the 2026 districts because the primary election is already underway.

The timing is politically significant. Kemp scheduled the session for June 17, the day after the state’s primary runoffs, and Republicans are aiming at the next full cycle rather than the midterms already in motion. Georgia has 14 congressional seats, and the redraw is expected to focus on some of the five seats held by Democrats, a move that could alter how communities in Atlanta, Augusta and other fast-changing parts of the state are represented in Washington.

Kemp’s proclamation also sends lawmakers back to work on state House and state Senate maps, along with “any other state office elected by district,” putting a wide swath of Georgia’s electoral geography back on the table. The special session comes six weeks after the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling and follows similar developments across the South, where Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina have all moved, or been allowed, to speed up their own redistricting efforts.

The push has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, who say the new maps are designed to protect Republican control rather than reflect population change. Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones, an Augusta Democrat, has said the effort wastes time and money and strips Black Georgians of political power.

Lawmakers will also revisit ballot QR code rules, an issue tied to Georgia’s voting machines. A 2024 law bars QR codes from being used for the official ballot count after July 1, 2026, but counties still use Dominion voting machines and the Legislature never approved money for a statewide replacement. A bill to extend the deadline passed the House and stalled in the Senate, leaving the June 17 session as the last chance to either delay the cutoff or force a new voting system into place before the deadline hits.