Black Democrat who outran Georgia GOP for decades is again a top target

In an era of larger-than-life political personalities and nationalized elections, U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, 79, is a throwback politician. The 17-term Democrat is an unapologetic centrist who carefully tends to the parochial needs of his heavily agrarian southwest Georgia district, where more than 1 in 5 residents live below the poverty line.

Bishop isn’t shy about highlighting his position as a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, the powerful panel that decides where to allocate federal dollars, including the farm and rural development programs, military bases and so-called “community projects” that have helped buoy his district. Indeed, the check presentation event in Americus was Bishop’s third that week.

“I’ve tried to use the process to improve the quality of life of the folks that I represent,” Bishop said in a recent interview. “And I tried to position myself so that I was in a position in Congress to be able to deliver for them.”

For years, Republicans have eyed Bishop’s 2nd District as a potential pickup opportunity. It is one of the last rural, majority-minority political seats in the Deep South and is the closest thing Georgia has to a swing seat under its heavily gerrymandered congressional map. Yet Republicans have been unable to defeat Bishop, even during GOP wave elections.

All of that could change in the wake of this spring’s blockbuster Supreme Court ruling that watered down a key portion of the Voting Rights Act. The decision makes it easier for partisan redistricting, and many Georgia Republicans are eager to maximize their 9-5 seat majority in the congressional delegation. When they do — GOP leaders shelved redistricting plans during June’s special session but are expected to revisit them after the November elections — Bishop is widely seen as the top target.

“I think that the impetus amongst Republicans is that this is too good of an opportunity to refuse,” said Chris Grant, chair of Mercer University’s political science department.

Some conservatives, however, note that GOP leaders target Bishop at their own peril. Not only is he well-liked by many farmers, agriculture groups and Republican officials, but his seniority could be helpful if Democrats regain power on Capitol Hill.

Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC

“If they draw it where it’s a super hardcore Republican district, then yeah, (Bishop is) probably going to lose,” said conservative radio commentator Erick Erickson, who is also an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion contributor. “But the question for Republicans in the Legislature is, do you want an ally for the farmers in South Georgia when you’re in the minority and have no sway with the majority?”

‘Serving the people’

The 2nd District stretches from Macon to Columbus and down to the Florida border, incorporating a large swath of Georgia’s Black Belt. The region’s fertile soil, which was worked first by slaves and later by sharecroppers, helped make it the “cornerstone of the Cotton Kingdom,” as historian W.E.B. Du Bois described it. The region’s rigid racial power structure, reinforced by Jim Crow’s violence and disenfranchisement, remained intact for generations.

In the early 1960s, Black students and organizers in Albany launched a grassroots campaign to end racial segregation, organizing acts of civil disobedience that drew the participation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Albany Movement proved to be an early setback for King personally, but locals continued the fight after he left, expanding their work into the surrounding rural counties.

In the decades that followed the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, political maps all over the country were being redrawn to give voters of color the chance to elect officials who looked like them. After the 1990 Census, Georgia state legislators, under pressure from the George H.W. Bush administration, drew a majority-Black congressional district in the state’s southwest corner.

In 1992, Bishop, a Morehouse College graduate and civil rights lawyer, had already served in the General Assembly for 15 years and raised his hand to run. He became the first person of color to represent the region in Washington.

Bishop held onto his seat even after his district was drastically redrawn following a court challenge in 1996. Much of his political base in Macon and Columbus was moved into another district, and the demographics of the 2nd shifted from a slim Black majority to roughly 60% white. Bishop moved from Columbus to Albany and was reelected.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

After a relatively close call in 2010, Bishop has won with mostly comfortable majorities since then, even after attempts from the Legislature to make his district more of a political toss-up. He is now the longest-serving member of the state’s congressional delegation.

Bishop’s approach to the job emphasizes accessibility and old-fashioned retail politics. He constantly tours the 30 counties in his district. He also leans into constituent service work, helping residents navigate the federal bureaucracy whenever they face issues with the IRS, Social Security and other agencies.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a matter of party. It’s a matter of policy. It’s a matter of serving the people,” he said.

He is a fierce advocate for his district’s interests on Capitol Hill. That holds particularly true for agriculture. The district produces more than one-quarter of all peanuts grown in the nation, according to Bishop’s campaign, and is also a major producer of cotton, blueberries and pecans.

Bishop has used his position to preserve federal support programs for crops, secure relief money for farmers hit eight years ago by Hurricane Michael and other recent storms, and help turn back plans from the U.S. Department of Transportation to bar peanuts on airplanes. Bishop also advocates for ending the estate tax, which he argues is particularly harmful to family farmers and small business owners.

Marty McClendon, a peanut farmer from Albany who has known Bishop since the 1990s, said “there’s all kind of different legislations and rules and regs that go on with farming and agribusiness and small business, and (Bishop has) been helpful in all aspects.”

He’s also worked to protect the three military installations in his district. He shielded Albany’s Marine Corps Logistics Base during the last round of military base closures in 2005 and helped lure a new mission to Fort Benning, which boosted metro Columbus’s economy during the Great Recession.

‘Not a matter of if, but when’

Bishop is favored to win reelection in November under the current district lines. But Republicans see a real opportunity to maximize partisan gains and de-emphasize race by redrawing the state’s political maps.

Tyler Johnson, the chairperson of the 2nd District Republican Party, said the current district has been “purpose built to insulate Sanford Bishop from any real Republican challenger.”

He brushed aside the idea that a newcomer on Capitol Hill may not be able to steer the same federal benefits to farmers in the same way Bishop has as a senior lawmaker.

“A Republican representative is going to still provide everything on the agricultural level, on the subsidy level, and all of that. It’s not going to be cut,” he said. “However, the other values — life at conception, protecting our Second Amendment rights … (are) also going to be upheld. So it’s a win-win to vote for the Republican.”

This fall, Bishop faces Republican Matt Day, a business owner who calls for “protecting family farms, defending constitutional freedoms, creating jobs and ensuring citizens have a voice before large-scale data centers reshape their communities.”

Chris West, a developer and lawyer who emerged from a crowded GOP primary field to challenge Bishop in 2022, says he has heard from local farmers who want more of an advocate in Washington.

“The economic pain they are feeling is real, and it is serious, and they are looking for someone that is going to step up and be a voice for them because they feel right now they do not have a voice in Washington,” said West, who lost to Bishop by 10 percentage points four years ago.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

Since the Supreme Court decision, Republican legislatures across the South have redrawn their congressional districts. The Congressional Black Caucus, of which Bishop is a member, warned that when all is said and done, almost a third of its members could lose their seats.

In Georgia, key Republican leaders have also pushed to rework the state’s congressional districts. Gov. Brian Kemp said he viewed the Supreme Court ruling as a mandate for change, one that required action before the 2028 election cycle.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he said not long after the decision came out.

Kemp called for a special session in June to redraw the lines, but those plans fizzled as some Republicans worried it could energize Democratic voters and overshadow GOP messaging on the economy ahead of the midterms.

But leaders have kept the door open to revisiting the issue. Democrats have warned the GOP majority could pass new maps and have Kemp sign them before he leaves office in January if Democrats manage to capture control of the Governor’s Mansion or a chamber of the state House this fall.

‘Slap in the face’

Daniel Simmons is the senior pastor of Albany’s Mt. Zion Baptist Church, which served as a gathering place for participants during the Albany Movement and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Bishop is a deacon and trustee at the church.

Simmons said it would be a “slap in the face” for the region’s hard-fought civil rights gains if the 2nd District is redrawn and its first congressman of color is unseated.

“It would be like all of that was in vain,” he said. “We had this representation, but now we’re taking it back.”

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Erickson, the conservative commentator, said it’s possible that Republicans in the Legislature opt to shield Bishop to preserve a well-placed Democratic ally in Washington, similar to what South Carolina Republicans did for U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, the lone Democrat in their congressional delegation, earlier this summer.

“This is one of those things when you talk to Republicans in South Georgia, they really like Sanford Bishop,” he said.

For his part, Bishop highlighted his strong working relationships with GOP officials over the years. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, he said, the rules of politics are still “who gets what, when and how” and who can deliver.

He said he hopes legislators take into account the importance of having Georgia “at the table and to have its interests protected, regardless of who’s in power.”

“To the extent that we can be positioned in that way, I think that the Legislature in its wisdom and the leadership of our state will probably take all of that into consideration as they draw the map,” he said.

— Staff writer Tia Mitchell contributed to this article.