State House Rep. Eric Gisler said his top priority if he is elected to return to the General Assembly in January will be to push legislation that would create nonpartisan, independent redistricting.
Gisler said he thinks there may be some members even in the Republican majority in the House who are “open” to legislation to eliminate gerrymandering.
He also acknowledged that not all members his minority Democratic Party are in favor of independent redistricting, either because they want to use redistricting to create more Democratic districts or because they want to make their own districts more safe.
Gisler said that redistricting based on county lines and communities of interest likely would put him in a more Republican district made up mostly of Oconee County that he would have more trouble winning. “I’m fine” with that, he said.
“If you fix redistricting, everything else will follow,” he said.
Gisler made these comments last week at the seventh Town Hall style meeting he has held since he was elected to represent the 121st House District in a special election last December.
Redistricting came up several times in the hour-long session, and Gisler said he expects, particularly if the Democrats win a majority in the House, the General Assembly will be called back into session in November to do the redistricting that was expected to be a part of the special session in June.
Gisler addressed other topics and responded to a number of questions in the meeting, including for his assessment of his opponent in November and about his strategy for holding his seat.
Question On Priorities
Thirty-seven people turned out for the Town Hall meeting on July 25 at Oak House Distillery and Speakeasy, 1015 Macon Highway, just across the county line in Athens-Clarke County.
The 121st House District includes three of Oconee County’s four precincts and parts or all of 10 precincts in Athens-Clarke County.
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| Gisler 7/25/2026 |
The session was informal, with back and forth throughout, but Gisler recognized a formal question at the back of the room 20 minutes into the session.
“Two-part question,” the person said. “One, what fundamentally separates you from your opponent? Two, if you could pass one piece of legislation, no bars, what would it be and why?”
“So the last one first,” Gisler responded. “There's a lot of things that we need, but the one that I care about the most, because I think it's the foundation and everything else kind of falls in place if we get it right, is independent redistricting.”
“I don't think politicians should be picking their voters,” Gisler continued. “It should be the other way around. Districts should be drawn by the political boundaries, the precincts, city limits, county lines, geographical lines, things like that.”
“They should be communities of interest,” he said. “If we do that, we'll still have Republican strongholds. We'll still have Democratic strongholds, but it'll be because the people who live in those places believe in that.”
“And then you'll have a lot more competitive districts than we have now,” he said. “So to me, number one, independent redistricting. And I think in the state of Georgia, we're coming up to a point where we can do that.”
“I flipped a seat last year,” Gisler said. “If I can hold it this year, then it kind of shows that we're overrunning the limits of what gerrymandering can do, which means a lot of the folks on the other side might be open to an independent redistricting conversation.”
Comments On Opponent
“Okay, about my opponent. So what separates me?” Gisler said.
“I think I know a lot of you,” he said. “I've known a lot of you for years. I think you know that I am not particularly ideological.”
“I believe in looking at what's objectively true,” Gisler said, “applying logic and reason to that, and ignoring the partisan noise that we all get bombarded with all the time, as much as possible.”
“As far as my opponent,” Gisler said, referring to Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest IV. “I've met him. I've talked to him a few times. He's a nice guy. I could see myself being friends with him after the election.”
“So yeah, he's a nice enough guy, but you don't have to talk to him very long to know that he's going to be a reliable vote for that party,” Gisler said. “Whatever they want to do, he's going to go along.”
“I don't think he's going to evaluate things independently,” Gisler added, “and I don't think he's going to stand up to his party if the pressure comes.”
More On Redistricting
Gisler returned to redistricting 20 minutes later in response to a question on the special session in June that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp called with the charge that the legislature redistrict the state for 2028. The legislature ignored that request.
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| Gisler 7/25/2026 |
“It didn't get a lot of airplay, it didn't get a lot of news,” Gisler said, “but during the special session, the entire House Democratic caucus signed on to legislation to establish an independent redistricting commission.”
“That was not in the agenda in the call for the special session, so it was never going to go anywhere and didn't get any coverage, really, because it was never going to happen,” he said.
Gisler said he was in favor of the legislation but he argued with his caucus that, since an independent commission was not going to go anywhere, the Democrats in the House instead should “produce our own maps because if we expect the Republicans to put out a gerrymandered Republican map, we should put out one that is not gerrymandered either way.”
“It's a talking point to the public to show them how we would do things,” he said.
“There are people in our caucus that if we get power, they want to gerrymander back in. That's what they want,” he said. “And there are folks who don't really care about gerrymandering, but they want their district to be safe.”
“And if we do flip, it's going to be really curious,” he said. “I'm very curious to see how many of them sign on to independent redistricting after we take it over, because that is a fight I'll have with them.”
“And I'll tell you this,” he said. “You guys know my district. If we did this, if we drew districts based on county lines and city lines and things like that, I'm probably getting drawn entirely within Oconee County in a much harder district to win.”
“I'm fine. I don't care,” he said. “I care about my district. I don't care about keeping it, because if you fix redistricting, everything else will follow.”
Heavily Democratic Clarke County is split into four House Districts, with three of them gerrymandered to make it more likely that a Republican will win. That includes Gisler’s 121st District, which is dominated by Oconee County, as well as the 120th House District, which includes the Northeast Precinct of Oconee County.
Holding The District
“So winning this next election for you, what do you think are the key factors?” an audience member said in response to Gisler’s statement on redistricting and its impact on his district.
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| Gisler 7/25/2026 |
“It is a gerrymandered district,” Gisler said. “I've gone back and I've looked at how we performed in (20)24,” when Gisler challenged and lost to incumbent Marcus Wiedower.
Gisler defeated Guest in the special election in December after Wiedower unexpectedly stepped down from his seat.
“We need a few more votes in Clarke County,” Gisler said. “And I think that we will. There's a lot of tailwind.”
“We have to convince, probably 2,500 to 3,000 people in Oconee County, who traditionally vote Republican, to vote for me,” he said.
“They don't have to vote a full Democratic ticket,” he said. “They’ve got to vote for me.”
“And so that's kind of the overall strategy going into it,” he said. “We've got to find those folks in Oconee County, and we're already out there knocking doors.”
Gisler lives in Oconee County.
Video
The video below on my Vimeo Channel is of the entire Town Hall meeting Gisler held on July 25 at Oak House Distillery and Speakeasy.
The video begins with a short introduction to Oak House.
The question on Gisler’s priorities for the next session begins at 19:13 in the video.
Gisler returned to redistricting at 38:02 in the video.
Gisler did not use a microphone, and none was passed to members of the audience as they asked their questions.
In addition, an air conditioner starts and stops periodically during the meeting.
Despite that, it is possible to hear most of the discussion. The transcription by Vimeo, which I used in this post, does an excellent job of picking up comments made by Gisler and members of the audience.
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