It took state Rep. Gregg Kennard about 10 minutes to decide his political future when he first saw Republican-drawn maps that bundled his Gwinnett County-based House district together with his close friend Sam Park.

“I told him I’d never oppose him,” Kennard said of his December conversation with Park, a House Democratic leader whom Kennard considers one of his political mentors. “My heart wouldn’t be in it at all.”

Kennard announced his decision not to seek another term on Tuesday, part of a political chain reaction set off by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones’ Dec. 28 ruling that upheld the reconfigured congressional and legislative districts.

In a major win for the GOP, Jones found that Republicans “fully complied” with his demand that lawmakers create seven new majority-Black seats in the Legislature and a new majority-Black U.S. House district in west metro Atlanta.

It triggered rapid-fire decisions that reordered the political maps in metro Atlanta and Middle Georgia. Some federal lawmakers jumped to new districts. At least two state legislators won’t seek another term to avoid a difficult intraparty fight.

And two Democratic incumbents plan to run against each other after being paired in one of the state’s most liberal legislative districts.

“Lucky me, I guess,” state Rep. Saira Draper said about being one of eight House members paired with an incumbent. She is poised to face state Rep. Becky Evans, another Democrat, in a May primary for a DeKalb County-based seat.

“My district elected me once because they wanted a voting rights expert in the Legislature,” Draper said, “and I very much believe they still want that.”

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Credit: Steve Schaefer

Evans, too, said she had unfinished business in office.

“My job isn’t done yet. I’ve worked hard to bring ethics and transparency to this office. We will run on our different strengths,” Evans said. “We both work hard and respect each other, and we’ll let the voters decide.”

‘The end of the road’

The new maps mean hundreds of thousands of metro Atlanta residents are poised to have new representatives in the state Legislature and Congress.

Drawn out of her district for the second time in two years, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath of Marietta will run in the newly created 6th District, which shifts from Atlanta’s northern suburbs to encompass parts of four counties on the city’s westside.

First-term Republican U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick will compete in the 7th District, once a Gwinnett-based seat held by McBath that was redrawn to be GOP-friendly territory that reaches from north Fulton County to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Long-serving Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta plans to remain in the 13th District, which shifted from southwest Atlanta to a five-county stretch on Atlanta’s Eastside. Democratic Reps. Hank Johnson of Lithonia and Nikema Williams of Atlanta will both remain in their realtered intown Atlanta districts.

In the Georgia House, the court-ordered redistricting forced four pairs of incumbents against each other: Six Democrats and two Republicans. The Draper-Evans matchup seems to be the anomaly.

Credit: Bob Andres/AJC

Just as Kennard decided against another term, Democratic state Rep. Doug Stoner said he’d step down rather than square off against state Rep. Teri Anulewicz, a longtime friend who he’s served with in both the Legislature and the Smyrna City Council.

It’s not clear whether the other pair of incumbents — Republicans Beth Camp of Concord and David Knight of Griffin — will face each other.

Camp said she plans to run for reelection because “there is so much more work to be done for my constituents and the people of Georgia.”

Knight, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, is expected by many at the Capitol to be appointed to a state post, sparing the GOP from a primary duel.

Credit: Jason.Getz/AJC

As for Kennard, he said he has come to terms with his decision not to seek reelection — though it doesn’t make it any easier.

“It was intentional. They were trying to pick me off, as well as a few others,” he said of Republican leaders.

A pastor who leads a nonprofit ministry, Kennard won office by less than 600 votes in 2018 to become one of several up-and-coming Democrats in Gwinnett County who captured their House seats by thin margins. He beat back tough GOP challengers in 2020 and 2022.

Now Kennard is coping with what could be the final stage of his political career.

“I’m still disappointed. I felt like I had a few more terms in me,” he said. “But for the moment, this seems like the end of the road for me in the Legislature.”