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. It now heads to the Indiana Senate.

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.

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. 

House Bill 1032 now heads to the Indiana Senate, where Republican lawmakers have been much more divided on the issue. Many 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. 

Contact Health Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org