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Indiana state House Republicans passed a new state congressional map Friday at the behest of President Donald Trump, advancing the legislation to the state Senate, where it is unclear if enough lawmakers will support its final passage.
Lawmakers in the Republican-majority House voted 57-41 in favor of the map, which splits the city of Indianapolis into four districts to help the GOP potentially win all nine Indiana congressional seats. While Trump and many other Republicans are celebrating the passage, the map faces its true test in the Senate, where many GOP lawmakers have opposed mid-decade redistricting.
Democrats in the House minority decried the new map, with many criticizing the swift timeline of the past week. The map was introduced on Monday. By contrast, when the current congressional district map was passed in 2021, lawmakers held multiple public hearings around the state over several months beforehand.
Democratic state Rep. Greg Porter, who represents Indianapolis, railed against the proposal on the House floor, saying it would dilute the power of Black Hoosiers. U.S. Rep. André Carson, who has represented Indianapolis for the past 17 years and stands to lose his seat, is the state’s only Black member of Congress.
“What we’re doing today with this proposed legislation is taking away the rights of Black and brown people in Indiana,” Porter said. “It cracks Marion County!”
The Republican author of the legislation, state Rep. Ben Smaltz, said on the floor Wednesday that the map and bill language were provided by the National Republican Redistricting Trust, the GOP’s primary redistricting entity that was also involved in drawing Texas’ new map this year. Smaltz said the trust gave Indiana Republicans one option for the statewide map.
Republicans currently hold seven of Indiana’s nine U.S. House seats. Indiana lawmakers have been under increasing pressure from the White House to follow the lead of Republicans in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina, which have all passed new maps in recent months ahead of next year’s midterms. To offset the GOP gains, Democrats in California and Virginia have moved to do the same.
Smaltz said Friday the tit-for-tat mid-decade redistricting between Democratic and Republican states may continue for the next several cycles and “may be the new normal.”
The Indiana House vote ups the pressure on Senate Republicans to approve the new map for final passage.
While redistricting is typically done at the beginning of a new decade with the census, Trump has pushed Republican-led states to redistrict this year to give the GOP an easier path to maintaining its majority in the U.S. House. Democrats only need to flip a handful of seats next November to overcome the GOP’s current margin, and midterm elections typically favor the party opposite the one in power.
Republican Todd Huston, Indiana’s House speaker, took to the floor Friday to defend the redistricting proposal in light of the partisan power balance across the country, saying “we don’t operate in a vacuum.”
Previously, the top Republican of the state Senate, Rodric Bray, said there were not enough votes to support redistricting. In the 50-member Senate, Republicans need at least 25 votes to pass the legislation. A 26th tiebreaking vote could come from Republican Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith.
The immediate next hurdle for the new map will come in a Senate committee, where it could face a smaller number of opposed senators.
The issue has sharply divided Republicans in the Hoosier state. Senators on both sides of the issue have been subject to threats and swatting attempts in recent weeks.
Trump has said he will back primary opponents against any GOP senator who opposes redistricting. But half the chamber, including Bray, is not up for reelection until 2028.
The map approved by House Republicans splits the Democratic city of Indianapolis — which currently makes up the entirety of the 7th Congressional District — into four quadrants divided among four rural districts. The new map also groups the cities of East Chicago and Gary with several Republican counties in northern Indiana, potentially ousting Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, who represents the current district in the state’s northwest corner near Chicago.
In the ballooning redistricting battle, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a win to Texas Republicans Thursday by allowing the state to conduct next year’s elections under the new congressional map that favors the GOP and could give the party five more seats.
Isabella Volmert, The Associated Press
