Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia shut down speculation on Wednesday that he would call a special legislative session to rush through new congressional maps favorable to Republicans or weaken the powers of his office before his Democratic successor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, could assume it.
“The voters of our state have spoken,” Mr. Kemp, a two-term Republican incumbent leaving office because of term limits, said in a statement on Wednesday morning. “As long as I’m governor, we will always respect the results of secure, accessible, and fair elections, and also abide by the laws and constitution of our state.”
A Supreme Court decision that weakened the Voting Rights Act has prompted Republican lawmakers across the South to redraw federal and state legislative boundaries to benefit their party, eliminating districts that had been created to promote minority representation.
Georgia’s legislature had resisted doing that, despite calls from President Trump and some Republicans in the state to take action. Mr. Kemp declined to redraw maps before the midterm elections, noting that early voting in the primaries had, by that point, already started.
He then called a special session in June to draw up new maps for the 2028 election. But less than an hour after the session began, Republican legislative leaders came out and said they would not present new maps after all.
They cited a desire for a methodical process that would include greater input from voters, rather than rushing legislation through, but the decision was also a recognition of mounting protests against redistricting and fears that moving forward could undermine their party’s already enfeebled fortunes in the midterm elections.
There was also an implicit expectation among many political observers that the matter had been shelved only temporarily, and that a narrow window between the election and when a new governor takes power would provide an opportunity not only to enact new maps but also to strip away some of the authority of the governor’s office. The chatter intensified as polls indicated a greater possibility of victory for Ms. Bottoms, a former mayor of Atlanta and the first Democrat to be elected governor of Georgia in more than 25 years.
Mr. Kemp moved immediately to cut off that possibility, but he said there were “budgetary issues that may need to be addressed before the convening of the regular session in January.”
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