JD Vance heads to Indiana to push redistricting, but legalities remain unclear

As President Donald Trump looks to increase the Republican majority in Congress, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun confirmed on Tuesday that Vice President JD Vance will be coming to Indianapolis to likely make a personal redistricting appeal.

“Whatever we discuss there, and if that topic comes up, it’s exploratory,” Braun said. “There’s been no commitments made.”

The visit is part of a nationwide push to net more Republican seats in the historically narrow U.S. House of Representatives—most notably in Texas, where Trump has said the GOP is “entitled” to more seats in Congress.

Indiana redraws congressional boundaries every 10 years after new census numbers, and has never done so off-cycle. Leaders will also have to determine if it’s legally allowed.

Mentioning Texas, Braun said that redistricting outside of the traditional ten-year cycle is “not going to be a calm process,” adding that, “we’ll see what happens.”

But Indiana Rep. Matt Pierce warned against the idea of redistricting with the explicit aim to grow a partisan advantage, worrying that such an effort can “take us down a very bad path.

“Because after that happens, our congressional institution is going to be illegitimate. People are going to ask themselves, ‘Does this really reflect the will of the people?’” asked Pierce, a Democrat from Bloomington. “… Once you lose legitimacy as a government, you don’t have a democracy anymore. This is no small thing that’s happening here—this is basically a knife fight for democracy and the Democrats better act like it.”

In retaliation, some Democrat-led states have floated the possibility of redrawing their maps to net more seats in Congress for their party, namely California and New York. Both of those states would have to reckon with state laws that put redistricting in the hands of non-partisan commissions, however.

States like Illinois and Texas already have an “F” from the Gerrymandering Project’s report card for their redistricting process. Indiana, meanwhile, has an “A” grade for its congressional map.

The number of competitive seats in Congress has dwindled. Theoretically, any candidate could win in the U.S. House’s 435 seats but, realistically, only 18 seats are considered to be a “toss up.” Senate positions are selected by the entire state and, as such, will not be impacted by redistricting.

“There are not a whole lot of seats in the House of Representatives that really could swing towards one party or the other,” said Steven Webster, an associate professor of political science at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus. “The reality is that most seats are pretty safe for one party; and so a lot of times you kind of have a pretty close balance of power in the House.”

Tip O’Neill, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, once famously said “all politics is local,” though he didn’t originate the sentiment.

Webster, however, said that “increasingly, the opposite is true.”

“These are ostensibly state-level issues, but they’re reflecting these national political debates,” he continued.

Congressional maps in Indiana

Indiana has nine congressional districts. Two are held by Democrats, while all of the Republican districts are considered to be safely and reliably red. Of the Democratic seats, one includes two-thirds of Marion County and would be difficult to redraw without diluting GOP voting margins in surrounding districts.

But the seat in northwestern Indiana, held by U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan since 2021, has been a Republican target in the past and is Indiana’s most competitive seat. Mrvan held onto the seat in 2022 with nearly 53% of the vote against Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green, who is now the state’s secretary of public safety. That margin grew slightly—to just over 53%—in 2024, when Mrvan won over Republican Randy Niemeyer.

And with parties scrambling to get any seat possible, Webster said that the Mrvan’s district is “the obvious target.”

Pierce, the House Democrat, said even Texas had to grapple with concerns that by redistricting in an explicitly partisan manner, they might accidentally create new districts that were actually competitive.

“In the era of artificial intelligence and data and thousands of data points about every voter, you can really gerrymander with precision,” said Pierce. “… so my concern is that this technology will allow them to accomplish their goals.”

Braun seemed to be hesitant about the prospect, repeatedly referring to other states with so-called gerrymandered maps that have districts “where it looks like the tentacles of an octopus.” Though both major parties are guilty of gerrymandering for political gain, he pointedly referred to Democrat-controlled Illinois and even Indiana’s own legislative maps in the early 2000s, when Democrats led the state.

“I think it’s a little rich, in the sense that they’re making that kind of case about it,” he said. “… gerrymandering has been their specialty, not ours.”

It’s unclear if state law would allow legislators to move forward with redistricting. A 1995 non-binding opinion from the Attorney General’s Office found that lawmakers could not redistrict state House and Senate seats mid-cycle but didn’t address congressional.

“Here, the text, history, and caselaw surrounding the pertinent constitutional provisions point unerringly to the same conclusion: attempts to redistrict in a manner other than that specified in Article 4, section 5 of the Indiana Constitution are forbidden.”

Additionally, Pierce noted, that ruling only specifies the timing of drawing up legislative maps—not those for Congress.

“I think President Trump and his handlers know that his popularity is declining; and I think they feel a wave coming; and they’re willing to do anything to thwart the will of the people,” said Pierce.

But with states like California and New York threatening to counter potential Texan gains, political operatives are looking to see where else maps could be redrawn—a process that Pierce decried.

He called for nonpartisan commissions in every state, a movement that has failed to gather enough momentum at the Indiana Statehouse—but said Democrats couldn’t “unilaterally disarm” in the current environment.

“This is a knife fight for democracy, and we have to get in there, and we have to fight hard,” Pierce said. “If that means trying to counterbalance these illegitimate moves on the parts of Republicans to try to redraw these maps in the middle of the decade, then we’ve got to try to counterbalance that.”

“If we just sit back and let this happen and we end up with an illegitimate Congress—really, our democracy is hanging by a thread and, at that point, then maybe it’s even over,” he continued. “So we have to fight hard to try to prevent this from happening.”

Can they do that?

If the Republican supermajority decides to move forward it would require a special session.

Braun would have to call it, but House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate Majority Leader Rodric Bray would set the agenda. Neither Huston nor Bray responded to a request for comment.

The two-week special session in 2022 cost taxpayers $240,000, which went to lawmakers’ per diems and travel expenses. However, that session came during a time when Indiana’s coffers were overflowing—as opposed to today, when the state is laying off workers and cutting expenses.

When asked about the cost, Braun declined to “make any pre-statement on that,” but said he and legislative leaders will listen to pitches from those interested in redistricting.

Webster called the idea politically “plausible,” saying that “if a special session is called, I would not be terribly surprised.

“I think this is a trend that’s likely to extend beyond just Texas or Indiana,” he added.

Barring a special session, lawmakers aren’t expected to reconvene until January—when candidates will start filing to run for a seat in Congress.

“I think it’s all going to come down, as most things in politics do, to how things get framed,” said Webster.

An “enterprising politician” could attempt to frame it in a way that takes away from any criticism about the cost, he said, though Democrats would be likely to highlight that budget hit.

“Whether that will be sufficient to stop Republicans from doing it is another question,” Webster concluded.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.