Your final take on what happened and what to expect
The fallout from the failed Senate congressional redistricting vote (which a member of the establishment dubbed “the war between consultants” at mid-month) continued through mid-month with much of the early intramural Republican dialogue focused on whether (or to what extent) Indiana would be subject to Trump Administration fallout for not passing new 9-0 Republican maps.
State GOP leaders still seem to be going back and forth (or hemming and hawing) over just what programs and projects may be rescinded, discretionary spending pared back; or future spending avoided.
U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R) tells Jake Tapper on CNN’s The Lead, “We have a lot of projects that we’ve been working on in Indiana. And, look … just like in business, you work with people who work with you. And you know, President Trump asked for this.” He adds that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “put a ton of time making phone calls, there was pushing, pulling, you know, and some of the excuses. There was no good excuse that I heard other than ‘this just breaks precedent,’ or ‘the President was being a bully about it.’ This is politics. I mean, this is hard ball and we’re playing softball. And so my belief is that, you know what, he’s going to look at Indiana and say, “ ‘Look, we want to work together, but I need your help, and the State Senate failed to help today,’ ” and the Senate vote now “makes our job here as a delegation harder.”
Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith (R) tweeted on the evening after the final vote: “The Trump admin was VERY clear about this. They told many lawmakers, cabinet members and the Gov and I that this would happen,” referring to the of losses of federal funding long-rumored and promised by Heritage Action. “The Indiana Senate made it clear to the Trump Admin today that they do not want to be partners with the WH. The WH made it clear to them that they’d oblige.”
Adam Wren of POLITICO Playbook “followed up by text. Was he saying the Trump team did threaten federal funding? ‘Yes these conversations happened,’ Beckwith said. ‘But it’s not a threat. It’s an honest conversation about who does the WH want to partner with. There are 49 other states competing for all kinds of projects. Indiana told the WH today they don’t want to be a good partner to the Trump Admin and I suspect the WH will look to partner with other states before us.’ ”
Wren asks, “But did they say here are the projects you could lose out on if you don’t deliver? ‘Yes,’ Beckwith said. ‘My conversation was specifically around the USDA Hub that we were potentially getting. That could be a partnership that we as Hoosiers could no longer see.’ The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
Your favorite newsletter told you a few months ago that we fully expected the U.S. Department of Agriculture move of what was supposed to be thousands of jobs to an Indiana headquarters to fall off the table if the D.C.-dictated maps were not approved.
We posed the funding question directly to Governor Mike Braun (R) in our Hannah News Service one-on-one year-end interview the week before Christmas. You can interpret response through your own filter: “I think the lieutenant governor, you know, thought that could be the case, but there was never a conversation, and we did risk the best relationship with the federal government of any state. I hope Hoosiers know that we’ll still get most of it, because my relationship is solid. That doesn’t mean there won’t be political consequences, and I think the Senate chose to really die on a hill there for something that no one else across the country was doing, and 80% of Hoosier Republicans and conservatives want to do it.”
Political retribution seemed to have been exacted on the State of Colorado early this week, as the President’s first veto of his second term kills H.R. 131, the “Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act,” a water pipeline being built to provide municipal and industrial water to communities in southeastern Colorado. The passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. KUSA-TV, Denver’s NBC News affiliate, reports that “Monday’s veto comes after Trump promised retaliation against Colorado for keeping his ally Tina Peters in prison. Peters was convicted on state charges for a scheme to tamper with voting systems in a search for election rigging in the 2020 presidential race,” and is serving a nine-year prison sentence even as the President ostensibly granted her a legally meaningless “pardon” (her conviction was not connected to any federal charges).
Governor Braun continues to us, “any way you compare it, that’s a national issue, because it impacts the number of congressmen you’re going to get from which party. So I think that has consequences. Who knows? We’ll see lot of the things that we’re working on that will make Hoosiers stand out on – energy, healthcare, education will be okay, because a lot of it – most governors don’t get legislatures that are going to be enterprising by nature, and I’m clearly one.” He concludes, “I don’t know how many executive orders we’ve done, but almost all of them have been well received, and that’s how you can move faster, even if a legislature doesn’t have the appetite to do it. But remember, I served with them for three years, and even when you go through a very visible discussion on something that had nothing to do with state government, you still got other things you get through and you work together on.”
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray (R) tells the Greencastle Banner Graphic in his district during Christmas week that “I never had anyone from the White House tell me if you don’t do this, you know, federal money won’t flow to the state of Indiana for Medicaid or for roads or anything like that.”
Other backbiting involved the LG blasting Senate leader Bray. He told WOWO 1190-AM’s Kayla Blakeslee in Fort Wayne, “America has seen the weakness of our Indiana State Senate. We’ve known this for years. The Senate in Indiana is where conservative bills from the House go to die.”
The LG continues, “What Rod Bray did was a middle finger to Donald Trump. He said, ‘Thanks for fighting for us, but we’re not going to fight for you.’ Rod Bray needs to be replaced as the leader of the Senate because you will never have a conservative Senate with his leadership at the helm.”
The LG’s choice for a new Senate leader to bring change to the body: Senate Majority Floor leader Chris Garten (R). “Chris Garten is an America First patriot. If we could get him in leadership, he would whip that Senate into shape.” Trump aide Alex Bruesewitz tweeted December 11, “Thank you @Sen_ChrisGarten! Big future ahead for this guy. He totally gets it!”
What you may find incongruent is that Sen. Bray is privately being praised by some of his caucus members and others close to the process for not only trying to protect them, but seeking to avoid embarrassing the Trump and Braun administrations with a vote that was never destined to succeed. “The ceiling was 20,” one person involved in the vote-counting privately tells us of the maximum number of votes for new maps, a figure that didn’t seem to budge at any point in the process.
As with many controversial measures that are not likely to pass, caucus leaders often take the heat from their rank-and-file for avoiding a vote that would merely be symbolic and put them at risk in the next primary or general election . . . and this was the Big Kahuna of such votes.
Indeed, we suggested early in the discussion that House Speaker Todd Huston (R) might not want the process to hatch in the House, preferring instead for the Senate to go first. At each stage, chances of passage in the Senate were much more speculative than in the House, and there was a definite school of thought that believed the House wanted to see if the maps could survive the Senate rather than go on record first in a likely losing battle. We’re not sure where the ultimate impetus was for the House to act first, but we’ll chalk it up to caucus preference, if not pressure.
But back to the national download.
Rep. Stutzman tells Punchbowl News of his former Hoosier Senate colleagues, “I just don’t think they understand the ramifications nationally. Shame on us.” Rep. Stutzman also tweets about a CNN appearance he made talking about the Senate redistricting malfunction: “The Indiana Senate did not have the courage to stop the destruction of America by the Democrat extremists. They are not playing as a part of the Republican team.” He added in the live hit, “Unfortunately, we just don’t have a State Senate that sees the big picture and understands the national implications of this. But at the end of the day, this is a team – you know, a team sport. We have to stick together, and the State Senate in Indiana decided not to do so today.”
LG Beckwith also noted to WOWO that “This is an evil Marxist Democrat movement that’s happening right now. And we should give no quarter to any of that.” The Lieutenant Governor also condemned some long-serving senators who voted against new maps. “Jim Buck has been in office since I was 11 years old. That is a problem. These guys need to go. Thank you for your service, now go right off into the sunset. You’re done.” Presumably he was of the same mind with respect to Sens. Vaneta Becker (R) and Jean Leising (R) as well as others first elected in the 2000s.
We’ve told you about all the groups and GOP leaders lining up to challenge Republican incumbents who voted against new congressional maps. “There’s a very big element in Indiana that hates Donald Trump” the LG tells WOWO, adding “these conversations were being had… you will see these primaries… taking leftist money to win Republican primaries.” “The primaries are about to get real ugly,” he asserts, with “a lot of political money will flow into our state, likely more than we’ve ever seen before.” “We didn’t start this war, but we will finish it. President Trump’s coming in. TP Action’s coming in. Governor Braun and I are coming in. We’re going to fix the Senate come hell or high water.” Beckwith concludes, “I’m already on the phone with potential primary candidates, so I got work to do.”
U.S. Sen. Jim Banks (R), himself a former Indiana state senator, joined Fox News Sunday on December 14 to discuss redistricting. “I stood with the President to support redistricting. And the primaries in Indiana are in May. There will be a lot of primaries. Primaries are healthy. And I’ll just tell you this. Donald Trump remains the most popular Republican in the State of Indiana. I’ve seen all the polling, recent polling. You don’t want to be on the other side of Donald Trump. And I can tell you that from personal experience. He endorsed me when I ran for the Senate. He cleared the field. And I’m senator today largely because of that endorsement. So those primaries will happen, but it’s not about Donald Trump. It’s about the country. It’s about keeping the Republican majority in the House of Representatives and addressing issues like health and saving this country from those who want to tear it down .… I’m focused on fighting for Indiana and for our country. President Trump loves Indiana, Indiana loves President Trump. There were a small handful of Republican senators in the state senate who voted against him and they’ll have to face the voters in May and November we’ll see how it plays out,” adds Sen. Banks.
The only post-map-vote polling we’ve seen shows strong support for the President, MAGA (now referred to as the “America First Agenda,” new maps, and for the ouster of anti-map Republicans. The survey (12/11-12; 1,010 likely R primary voters; mobile text responses and multi-mode live interviews; margin of error ± 3.11 percentage points) was conducted by co/efficient for the Indiana Fair Maps PAC organized by the Trump Administration-affiliated Marty Obst, Chris LaCivita, and Chip Englander.
The President enjoys the highest favorables (82%) of any Indiana politico tested, and 86% are said to want their elected representatives to support his agenda – “clearly a core expectation of Indiana Republican voters,” according to the polling memo. Almost three-quarters (72%) of those surveyed supported the President’s call for new congressional districts, vs. 17% opposed. “At a rate of almost 5 to 1, the Indiana Republicans want their State Senators to make this new map a reality.” Further, “Republican primary voters respond negatively to legislators who align with Democrats to block the newly drawn congressional maps. Over two-thirds of Indiana Republicans (67%) say they would be less likely to re-elect their State Senator if that legislator sided with liberal Democrats to vote down the new map.”
The pollsters’ conclusion: In the upcoming Primary Elections. These Senators will find it difficult to defend a position that flies in the face of the will of such a large portion of their base.” The bottom line: Blocking redistricting is not viewed as principled governing, but as a failure to fight to Indiana, America, and the President’s America First Agenda.”
After the vote, Lt. Gov. Beckwith posted photos and contact information on X “for all of the 21 Republicans who voted against the proposal that had been championed by President Donald Trump and Gov. Mike Braun. As is often the case with Beckwith, he removed the controversial post,” writes Mike Marturello for the Angola Herald Republican, but it nonetheless was seen by many before it went down.”
Sen. Sue Glick (R) tells Marturello that “she wasn’t so worried about herself in the fallout as she was other members of the Senate. ‘You have to have thick skin to be in politics. I worry more about my fellow senators with young children or family members with health issues. The threats of harm are greatest to them because of the impact on their families,’ Glick said. ‘I am mindful of the threats but it won’t stop me from doing the job I was elected to do. As for Beckwith, his behavior often discredits both his office and his faith.’ ”
Sen. Glick, a former county prosecutor, is an author of SB 140, a measure that would designate doxxing – knowingly or intentionally posting personal information of a targeted person, or of a person closely connected to the targeted person, to communicate a threat to the targeted person in retaliation for a prior lawful act – as a Class A misdemeanor (with aggravation levels ramping it up to a Level 5 or Level 6 felony). Eight Republican senators are authors or co-authors of this legislation.
“We’re fractionated, Kayla –that’s what it boils down to,” Rep. Bob Morris (R) tells WOWO’s Blakeslee after the vote. “The leader of our party, President Donald Trump, has foresight in looking into the future of the U.S. Congress, and we failed him. The General Assembly in Indiana failed him.” He continued, “The Governor called us into special session for a reason. And a select few senators chose to be outside the Republican Party on this one. It hurts – it hurts bad.” “It shows you the fraction,” he said. “You have a leader like Liz Brown who continuously gets attacked. I heard an ad this morning attacking her, and it’s sad – it’s sad what’s going on in the Indiana State Senate …. You look at Liz Brown and her pro-life stance, her stance on redistricting, and then the handful – the dozen – of legislators behind her pushing to get this done,” Rep. Morris added. “It’s amazing to me how many leaders within our party continuously attack her.”
Is the threatened retribution legally viable?
“While the federal government has some power to induce states to follow a policy agenda, there are limits on how the president can pressure them … Professor Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, a leading election law scholar with the Maurer School of Law at Indiana University Bloomington,” tells Democracy Docket. “Coercion is clearly unconstitutional,” he explains. “This is coercion on steroids.” “Ultimately, if Trump did threaten all of Indiana’s federal funding, it signals that the structures of American democracy are in serious danger, he said. ‘It’s so beyond the pale, beyond any bounds of what we hope the Constitution means,’ Fuentes-Rohwer said.”
Meanwhile, the Columbus Republic reports that U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), is urging the U.S. Office of Special Counsel “to investigate whether Trump administration officials violated federal law by contacting state Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, about an Oval Office visit tied to the president’s redistricting push in Indiana.” We reported that Sen. Walker told his hometown paper that he had turned down an invitation to visit the Oval Office November 19 for “a political discussion” on redistricting, “and accused the White House of violating the Hatch Act.”
Sen. Padilla sent a letter to Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer and White House Counsel David Warrington, to “ ‘bring attention to new potential violations’ of the Hatch Act by Trump administration officials in connection with mid-decade redistricting efforts, stating that ‘the situation in Indiana is urgent.’ ” “The situation has escalated to such a level that the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of White House Counsel must take immediate action to ensure that senior Trump administration officials cease this apparently illegal behavior,” Sen. Padilla writes. “Your offices have a duty to act, not only to ensure that administration officials follow the law, but to protect these public servants across the country from bearing the brunt of this apparently illegal activity in the current heightened political threat environment.”
The President claimed a few minutes after the Senate vote that “I wasn’t working on it very hard. Would have been nice, I think we would have picked up two seats, if we did that. You had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is, I heard he was against it. He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.”
Several hours after that statement, the President issued a missive via Truth Social well after midnight asserting that “Republicans in the Indiana State Senate, who voted against a Majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, should be ashamed of themselves. Headed by a total loser named Rod Bray, every one of these people should be “primaried,” and I will be there to help! Indiana, which I won big, is the only state in the Union to do this!”
That’s the new coda to the apocryphal story about former Senate president Bob Garton (R) once saying that the only thing keeping him awake at night was not knowing what Sen. Leising might do the next day. Now, Garton’s successor as institutional protector, Sen. Bray, is apparently keeping POTUS up at night (or at least until 12:52 a.m.).
As for why the maps ultimately failed . . . there are probably 21 different reasons why the majority of the majority caucus voted down the concept (or, by that time, the reality). These range from adherence to federalist principles and a rebuke for those who didn’t respect the process to pushback against the threats – swatting-related or more direct overtures from D.C.; to the shift from 7-2 to 8-1, and then 9-0; the take-it-or-leave-it proposed new lines; overwhelming district opposition to the concept; some on-the-fence senators who could have gone either way voting against the maps to offer some of their anti-map colleagues backup; or an opportunity to weaken the Governor, among common themes.
What we’ll be watching on the Third Floor in January and February: talk about how the legislative supermajority leaders moved from a position of trying to protect both chambers from a vote to one in which they each sought a vote, well aware of roughly what the totals would turn out to be . . . and whether there will be any fallout over rank-and-file members having felt pressured to vote for new maps when most of leadership (House Speaker Pro Tem Mike Karickhoff (R), House Majority Floor Leader Matt Lehman (R), House Majority Caucus Leader Greg Steuerwald (R); and leader Bray, Senate Majority Caucus Chair Travis Holdman (R), Assistant President Pro Tem Glick, Majority Floor Leader Emeritus Buck, and Assistant Majority Caucus Chair Kyle Walker (R)) voted against the maps.