The speakership of Tom Murphy was directly influential in the redistricting cycles of 1980, 1990 and 2000, in which he worked to protect the Democratic majority from growing rural and suburban gains by Republicans through gerrymandering.
Murphy acted to redraw the congressional seats of high-profile Republicans Newt Gingrich (1991), and Bob Barr (2001), in what was viewed as typical of his "hardball" application of political power.
Following the 2004 election, which saw Republicans gain a majority in both houses for the first time in Georgia history, redrew legislative and congressional maps in 2005[2] after federal judges struck down both maps which were drawn by the 146th legislature as violating the one person, one vote guarantee of the U.S. Constitution, resulting in a reshuffling of districts which took effect in the next legislature which shored up Republican gains in both chambers and in Congress.
[4] After the 2020 election for the Georgia Public Service Commission, in which African-American Democrat Daniel Blackman was defeated in a run-off by District 4 incumbent Lauren "Bubba" McDonald (who won the most total votes of all three Republican statewide candidates on the runoff ballot, while both David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost their runoffs for U.S. Senate on the same ballot[5]), a lawsuit was filed against the PSC election method by Georgia Conservation Voters, alleging that the method violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Durand alleged that Gwinnett County was moved out of the district in order to deny a challenge to Republican incumbent Tim Echols.