Following Trump pressure, Indiana House approves map to secure GOP control

The Indiana House passed a congressional map aimed at securing Republican control of the U.S. House, following months of pressure from the Trump administration to redraw boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm election. 

The bill passed 57-41 largely along party lines, with all but 12 House Republicans voting in favor. Democrats voted unanimously against the measure, which now heads to the Indiana Senate, where Republican lawmakers have been much more divided on the issue.

Following the vote, House Democratic Leader Phil GiaQuinta (D-Fort Wayne) warned Republicans could redistrict anytime they didn’t like the result of an election. 

“We’ve set the stage to start to do this more often than it should be done,” he said. 

But, GiaQuinta said he hoped the vote was close enough to give Senate Republicans pause. 

“That’s quite a few ‘no’ votes to send a signal to the Senate…  that the bill is not a good idea,” he said. 

Outside the chamber, Gov. Mike Braun spoke at a rally of over a hundred people redistricting supporters. The campus activist group Turning Point Action is the political arm of Turning Point USA founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The group organized the event as part of a national drive from conservative influencers to demand Indiana lawmakers approve the map.

Braun has said he would support Republican primary challenges against lawmakers who vote against redistricting.

“This state senate that we’re dealing with next week, they were the biggest impediment to property tax reform, to doing so many other things,” he told the crowd, referencing his last legislative priority. “If they dig in on this issue, I think you heard it earlier, it won't end. That means you're going to have to clean house to get real conservatives in serving Hoosiers.”
 

Other speakers included Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, state lawmakers, and members of Turning Point Action. 

Brett Galaszewski, the national enterprise director for Turning Point Action, said his organization is prepared to act. 

“If it does not pass, Turning Point Action is willing to throw more money and resources into these primary races than some Congressional races. We will throw the kitchen sink at this thing,” he said. “We will throw so much money and resources into this state that no amount of money coming from a leadership PAC will be able to offset it.”

The rally also drew a smaller number of protesters opposed to redistricting. They shouted from the balcony above, calling individual speakers a “traitor” and a “cheater.”

Political fight continues

The move places Indiana at the center of a national battle over redistricting. While states typically redraw maps once a decade following the census, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ben Smaltz (R-Auburn), acknowledged this vote establishes a new precedent.  

 “I would say that we're making it clear that you can redistrict outside the decennial census,” he said.

Republicans currently hold seven of Indiana’s nine U.S. House seats. The proposed map targets the two remaining Democratic strongholds: District 1 in Northwest Indiana, held by Rep. Frank Mrvan, and District 7 in Indianapolis, held by Rep. André Carson. 

“We don’t operate in a vacuum,” House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) told the chamber ahead of the vote. “I’ve heard we can stop it here, I don’t think anybody believes that. I don’t think what we do here will stop other states from doing it. This is the place where we are right now, this is our time to act.”
 

This week, Democrats repeatedly urged Republicans to “break the fever” and halt what they said is a race to upend Democracy and dilute minority votes.

“I don't know what's happened to my friends on this side of the aisle,” Rep. Matt Pierce (D-Bloomington) said before the final vote. “We've had lots of disagreements, but I've never once got the sense from the other side of the aisle that, basically, you really shouldn't exist.”

Republicans, led mostly by Smaltz, have said they see the new map as necessary to offset Democratic gerrymandering in other states and a protection against efforts to impeach Trump if Democrats win the U.S. House.

Trump’s effort, aimed at holding the narrow Republican control of the U.S. House, prompted Texas lawmakers to draw a new map that could help the party win five seats there. Republicans in North Carolina and Missouri followed with a seat in each state. Democrats countered by redistricting aimed at winning five seats in California. And Democrats in Virginia are looking to redistrict there.

The map proposed by House Republicans would slice up those Democratic districts, diluting enough Democratic voters to keep those seats red. 

Rep. Mike Andrade (D-Munster), who represents the Northwest Corner of Indiana, where District 1 would be redrawn, said his community was being “torn apart.”

“Hoosiers across the state are struggling to believe the government listens,” Andrade said. “They see decisions being made out of sight. They see their communities being split without explanation. They see their voices diluted. And then we wonder why public trust erodes year after year.”

The Marion County district, for example, would be split into four separate districts that stretch into more rural areas of the state. That’s led some Democrats to argue Republican efforts amount to “racial gerrymandering.”

In Texas, new congressional maps had been held up in court over questions of whether those maps were racially gerrymandered, but the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed those maps to go into effect. 

What’s next

House Bill 1032 now heads to the Indiana Senate.. Some caucus members have voiced concerns about what normalizing gerrymandering could mean for the country and expressed frustration over advertising pressure from Washington.

As Indiana lawmakers have weighed redistricting, many say they and their families have faced anonymous threats, including bomb threats, although the motives behind those incidents aren't confirmed. Several lawmakers reported being the victims of swatting attempts, with law enforcement called to their homes under false reports of domestic violence. 
 

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