State Rep. Stacey Abrams (D-Atlanta), who represents much of Druid Hills and Virginia Highlands under the gold dome, will be making a lot of news in the coming weeks.

As Minority Leader, Abrams is the state House's top ranking Democrat, and will likely be front and center when the General Assembly convenes a special session next week to redraw Georgia's legislative and congressional maps.

States are required to redraw and adjust their political boundries each time a new census is completed, to reflect those changes in population and demographics. The dominant party in the state legislature is in charge of redrawing the maps, and the process can be bitterly partisan and drawn out.

In Georgia, Republicans have a solid majority in the House and Senate, and Abrams and her Democratic colleagues - a majority of whom represent metro Atlanta districts - are accusing Republicans of purging white Democrats from the legislative landscape.

"Based on initial district map pairings and gerrymanders, the number of white House Democrats may be reduced from 20 to 10," Abrams said in a prepared statement through her spokesperson, Liz Flowers. "In general, the GOP-proposed maps will limit the voices of Atlanta and its neighborhoods.

"By packing districts as they have and drawing members into competition with each other, the citizens from these intown neighborhoods will lose representation in the General Assembly and their ability to build coalitions will be diluted."

The proposed maps are scheduled to be officially released on Friday.

Also on Friday, the AJC reported that Abrams has warned her colleagues not to support any Republican-drawn map.

"Georgia has successfully created multi-racial coalitions over the last 46 years, an achievement that will be eroded if the proposed maps are adopted," Abrams said in her prepared statement. "Democrats have only been allowed to look through a knot hole and are concerned that this has not been a fair, transparent and equal process."

During the most recent General Assembly, Abrams generally received high marks from Republicans for her bipartisan approach, and from Democrats, for her ability to wrest numerous concessions from Gov. Nathan Deal and the GOP on issues such as tax reform and revamping the HOPE scholarship.

Earlier this year, Governing Magazine named Abrams as one of a dozen state Democratic lawmakers across the nation with a promising future.

Connect with Virginia-Highland Patch on Facebook and on Twitter at @VaHiPatch. Get Patch in your inbox.