Part II: From the Cracker Squire Archives - Growing population disparity will translate into significant changes in 'the Two Georgias.'

From a 12-26-10 post entitled "Bullock: Growing population disparity between the northern part of state & south will translate into significant changes in 'the Two Georgias.'":

[I]n south Georgia — everything below the “gnat line” as [University of Georgia professor Charles Bullock] says — growth is slower, or, in some cases, stagnant or even declining as people move from their hometowns out-of-state or to larger urban centers looking for work or higher education.

This growing population disparity between the northern part of the state and the south will translate into significant changes in how “the Two Georgias” are governed both at the state and federal levels when the General Assembly takes up the redistricting process in the second half of 2011, Bullock said.

In terms of south Georgia, the three main congressional districts — the 1st, 2nd and 8th — will most likely be impacted by the population shifts. Under federal guidelines, law and caselaw handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, when the General Assembly tackles redistricting it must take into consideration certain factors.

Two Supreme Court opinions handed down in the 1960s — Wesberry v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims — state that the districts must be drawn so that “as nearly as is practicable one person’s vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another’s,” and that state districts must be “as nearly of equal population as is practicable.”