The Indiana House on Thursday voted 67-31, mostly along party lines, to approve the new state legislative and congressional election district maps, likely ensuring Republicans will keep their supermajority in the Legislature.
Indianapolis would gain a new state Senate district under a redistricting plan released Tuesday by Indiana Senate Republicans.
The Indiana House Elections Committee voted 9-4 along party lines Tuesday morning to advance the proposed congressional and House district election maps released last week by Republicans.
When voters in some states created new commissions to handle the politically thorny process of redistricting, the hope was that the bipartisan panelists could work together to draw new voting districts free of partisan gerrymandering. Instead, cooperation has proved elusive.
Stepping to the lectern in the Indiana House Chamber, Rev. Fatima Yakubu-Madus echoed the frustration of many who attended Thursday’s public hearing on redistricting when she emphatically asked state representatives, “What can we do, what can we say to change your mind?”
Some Indiana House Republican incumbents could go head-to-head with their GOP colleagues next election cycle based on shifts in the proposed redistricting maps.
Drafts of the state’s proposed new congressional and House district maps released Tuesday by Republicans aren’t likely to make a sizable change in Indiana’s political landscape.
A Republican redistricting plan shores up a suburban Indianapolis district for the GOP while leaving a potentially targeted Democratic district in northwestern Indiana intact.
Indiana House and Senate leaders set a tentative timeline Tuesday for the Legislature to approve the new state legislative district maps.
Hoosiers are being invited to try their skills at drawing legislative and congressional maps as part of the ongoing push by civic organizations in Indiana to have more public involvement in the redistricting process.
The fight over redrawing political maps is just ramping up in state legislatures and nonpartisan commissions around the country. But both Republicans and Democrats already are planning for major showdowns in the courts.
The once-a-decade battle over redistricting is set to be a showdown over the suburbs, as new census data released Thursday showed rapid growth around the some of the nation’s largest cities and shrinking population in many rural counties.
More than half of Indiana’s counties lost population during the last decade, according to U.S. Census figures released Thursday showing the state’s growth around Indianapolis and its other largest cities.
Lawmakers heard more than two hours of testimony Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse from citizens who spent most of their time asking for a fair redistricting process.
Indiana lawmakers are set to take on a final hearing at the Statehouse on Wednesday following a weekend of mostly partisan input from hundreds who attended redistricting listening tours across the state.
As House Republicans and Democrats continue to tussle over a consultant the GOP has hired to help with the redistricting process, the chair of the Indiana Senate Committee on Elections said he sees no reason for the consultant’s contract not to be made public.
In years past, the Indiana Legislature has been able to shroud the redistricting process with budget debates and other pending issues. But due to a pandemic-related delay in the census data needed to redraw the maps this year, lawmakers are expected to return to the Statehouse in September to deal exclusively with redistricting. Several voter groups are promising to closely monitor the process, even though most of the wheeling and dealing could still occur behind closed doors amid sporadic public hearings.
The Indiana General Assembly will be hosting a series of meetings around the state in August to get public input on the upcoming redistricting process prior to the congressional and state legislative maps being redrawn.
Greater access to the ballot, fair voting systems and inclusion in the process does not mean allegiance to a particular party — it should be a universal concept that brings about reasoned, well-informed participation in a system that affords citizens the opportunity to express policy and political preferences.
A coalition of voting rights organizations are criticizing the outline Republican leaders provided on the process they intended to follow for redrawing Indiana’s legislative and congressional maps, claiming Hoosiers are being left in the dark on redistricting.