Thank you for your attention to this matter!
The longer Governor Mike Braun (R) takes to call for a special session for redistricting the better the chances are for such a session to be convened . . . or is it the more time passes without the Governor making the call lessens the likelihood of such a special session? Well, it depends who you talk to.
Some suggest that if the Governor wanted to remove heat from legislative leaders and rank-and-file GOP legislators, take away an issue on which Democrats and third-party groups are finding traction, and make Indiana Republicans the first to declare independence of sorts from the Trump Administration and MAGA crowd, he would have done so already.
Others believe that the Governor is merely waiting for some time and distance to pass to allow public disapproval to inevitably die down, allow lawmakers to quietly build support in their respective districts for their decision to come (you’ve likely noticed more members favoring a special session since the big D.C. field trip this week . . . including some former opponents now striking a more open-minded tone), and avoid allowing it to appear as if Hoosier Republicans are quickly caving to presidential arm-twisting, maintaining a modicum of dignity by making it appear more like redistricting was their carefully-considered policy decision, rather than a hastily conceived political act of surrender.
Regardless, the betting bucks on the prediction markets (we checked top platforms and couldn’t find any current market) presumably would favor a special session . . . and we’ve been hearing the first week in November is the target.
So what’s the latest news, and what should you be watching?
White House Meeting
A cadre of almost six-dozen Hoosier legislative Republicans traveled to Washington, D.C. for a Tuesday meeting in the White House complex that had been scheduled last month, and for which redistricting was not to be a major topic of conversation. Rather, the fortuitously scheduled event was ostensibly to update solons on Trump Administration initiatives, and explain how Hoosiers fit in and could help advance key causes.
In fact, the session included a 30-minute push at the end for redistricting, a case personally advanced by Vice President JD Vance (R).
The VP made it clear that the White House and its political allies would be active on the ground next year – in primary and general elections – to renominate and reelect those legislators who would get behind the White House redistricting effort.
Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray (R) and House Speaker Todd Huston (R) – whom, as we told you early this year, has a daughter working in the White House press office – were singled out for special treatment, summoned for an Oval Office meeting with the President himself, hearing directly from him as to why Indiana played such an important role in continuing to advance the agenda to which they had just heard their members applaud in the meeting with the Vice President. Pretty heady stuff.
The Indiana redistricting effort is not only a White House fixation at this point. Nor is it merely an Indiana political story or the province of the Inside the Beltway political newsletters. With Indiana perhaps the last state that can offer the Trump Administration a seat, or conceivably two, in Congress that could prove decisive to White House agenda items in 2027 and 2028 – as well as help show some political MAGA momentum in what is expected to be a strong mid-term cycle for House Democrats – the Indiana battle has attracted the attention of the chattering class writ large, now finding traction in the pages of the Washington Post and New York Times and national Associated Press stories.
Indiana’s new turn in the mainstream media spotlight has only served to further focus the forces on both sides of the redistricting fight, raising the stakes for both the White House and for Governor Braun and legislative Republicans. The matter has now become a topic of conversation not only in Indianapolis salon circles, but in diners and vives throughout rural Indiana – much to the consternation (and potential detriment of) Hoosier GOP lawmakers.
Opposing redistricting is – politically speaking – a no-lose issue for Democrats. United in defense of the current district line-up, incumbent Democrats will not be challenged by progressives in primaries over the stance (unless there is a tea party-version of Hoosier progressives in the wilderness that we’ve overlooked, a movement so fed up with DINOs that they work en masse to topple incumbents for being too complacent, pointing to redistricting as the inevitable final straw in that Jimmy Carter-like Demo malaise) They will not sacrifice a single vote in the general election for their stance on redistricting; the MAGA crowd would never vote for them anyway, and they should pick up a few independent or more moderate Republican votes.
The political situation is much more nuanced for Republicans. MAGA world is much more fired up in support of redistricting than GOP circles opposing the move, and, as we’ll detail below, well-financed primary challenges from the right are likely for many GOP incumbent who fail to support new maps. Any modest support from moderates (or Democrats) for Republican incumbents who oppose redistricting is certainly outweighed by what will be a strong MAGA push to oust them, even if it means (temporarily) replacing them with a Democrat.
Unless you’re a Republican like Rep. Danny Lopez (R), in tight with the business community and local political leaders in an increasingly purple district, it may be tough to politically survive – much less benefit from – a stance opposing a special session or an actual floor vote against new maps.
Change in Heart
The D.C. discussions – combined, no doubt, with an opportunity to hear more from colleagues and leaders – led to at least one GOP caucus member sliding down the spectrum from a firm no to an open mind. Rep. Jim Lucas (R), one of the original naysayers to new maps was much more equivocal after the Vance briefing, and that followed a pre-trip flip from Rep. Craig Haggard (R). Rep. Haggard, who had earlier announced a primary challenge to U.S. Rep. Jim Baird (R) in CD 04, no now longer knows what CD 04 might look like after a special session . . . though given the antipathy of his colleagues toward him, combined with the need to add Democrats to CD 04 from CD 01 to the north and CD 07 from the east, we are certain that he would not end up in the Baird district under new maps, and would benefit from MAGA-associated support in a potential renomination fight.
While no one emerged from the rarified air of the White House to oppose new maps. Sen. Liz Brown (R) did take to social media to suggest she would back the effort . . . illustrating the importance of the political support that is being assured to incumbents backing new maps. Sen. Brown faces a serious primary challenge from the right – by an aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks (R), backed by Sen. Banks and Attorney General Todd Rokita (R), among others. If the President truly agreed to have the backs of those who helped him out on the maps, him staying out of this race – or even conceivably backing Brown – could prove determinative in a close primary race.
Freshman Reps. Matt Commons (R) and Andrew Ireland (R) this week declared their respective support for redistricting. “I fully support Congressional redistricting in Indiana. Democrats haven’t won the support of everyday Hoosier voters for more than a decade, and they have no business representing us in Washington,” writes Rep. Ireland on social media.
Challenged on his statement Wednesday by Hoosier native Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition., Rep. Ireland doubles down. “I’ll say that because, you look at Indiana and the political makeup, yes, for 60/40, but also, Democrats have not won over the average Hoosier in a statewide vote for more than a decade in a single office. I think that says a lot about where the party is that it no longer connects with the average Hoosier voter. There’s something to be said that we should have congressional maps that reflect the average Hoosier voter – that don’t swing hard to one party or another but actually just swing to the basic average within the state. And then if Democrats can’t win that, I mean, that’s on Democrats and the fact that they’re not focusing on policies and issues that matter.”
While the call is technically the Governor’s to make – and while we’re not sure whether he is probably silently thanking or damning his predecessor for successfully fighting in court the law that would have allowed the General Assembly to call itself into special session! – he’s looking closely at legislative sentiment . . . and the tide seems to be turning toward spending some time this fall back in Indianapolis.
Some recall when, early on in the process, the Governor had told the Indiana Capital Chronicle “I think mostly what happens here is going to depend on where Texas goes, because I think they’ve got five seats in play.” Presumably that meant that if Texas were to draw new maps, as they did, there would be no need for Indiana to jump into the fray . . . although since then, California and Illinois have reacted to the Texas move, perhaps mooting Gov. Braun’s initial sentiment, and upping the ante in the arms race that redistricting has become.
Where the Governor Stands
The Governor is clearly listening, and he’s also taking counsel from the legislative leaders. While he’s not necessarily as concerned as leadership might be about maintaining a legislative supermajority (although his chief of staff was a principal in the House GOP caucus-favored political consulting firm), he is growing increasingly preoccupied with the fate of federal dollars for Hoosier programs that could be threatened by not comporting with presidential wishes, as well as prospects for state waiver requests that could prove costly for the State if not granted by the feds. This might not have been as important in years past, where a growing state economy and federal stimulus and then pandemic relief dollars more than closed assorted funding gaps. However, today, the State is facing a real cash crunch, one that could be greatly exacerbated by the failure to obtain a pending Medicaid waiver. And we also might not be able to begin planning for new highway miles without a tolling waiver. And the local economy might not grow if the thousands of jobs promised by a move to regionalize federal U.S. Department of Agriculture jobs would mysteriously be whisked away to another, more Trump-compliant state.
Gov. Braun is between the proverbial rock and hard place on this. He’s a Trump loyalist and would like to help out where he can. Yet he is also not a guy who gives in to threats (nor does he want to be perceived as that guy). He also understands the potential fiscal implications for Indiana of losing “most-favored nation” status, while the majority of Hoosiers who purportedly oppose mid-decade redistricting do not have to factor that important variable into their respective philosophical resistance.
Although there could ultimately be a difference between the GOP legislative leaders and the Governor on calling a special session, we would presume that he would convene lawmakers if leadership seeks one, even if he is not in favor. We do not, however, see him calling a special session over potential opposition of the Third Floor. He would face too much opprobrium from lawmakers who would believe that he hung them out to dry on the issue and lose too much political goodwill (not to mention the potential loss of the legislative supermajority in November) to do so flying solo . . . and even risk, at that point, the supermajority failing to agree on maps.
Regardless of all we’ve just laid out for you, the Governor does have an opportunity to benefit from a special session, which we’ll detail for you below.
Initial Readings from the Public
Count US IN, founded in 2020, is the first Indiana-based Black, Disability-led nonpartisan voting and civic engagement organization, and it has tied itself to the anti-map community. Count US IN also commissioned an online survey of Hoosier priorities that finds slightly more than one-third (34%) support redrawing Indiana’s maps this year, while a light majority (52%) are opposed – including 43% who are very opposed.
The survey was conducted by left-leaning Change Research (08/18-21; 1,662 RVs; margin of error ± 2.6 percentage points) using targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, as well as across the web via Facebook’s ad platform (1,152 respondents) and text messages sent, via the Echo19 platform, to cell phone numbers listed on the voter file for individuals who qualified for the survey’s sample universe, based on their voter file data (510 respondents).
The statewide survey of 1,662 registered Indiana voters shows a majority of Hoosiers opposed to conducting a mid-decade revision of its electoral maps; highlights a strong consensus among voters that district maps should be fair and representative; and that gerrymandering should be rejected regardless of which party it benefits.
The poll also suggests that Hoosiers see mid-decade redistricting as a costly distraction from the challenges they face in their everyday lives. Fully 60% of respondents believe inflation and the rising cost of everyday goods are top priorities, with energy costs (39%), property taxes (37%), and health care access (34%) also ranking high. Only seven percent rate “redrawing legislative maps” as one of the top legislative priorities.
Almost one in five respondents (19%) agreed with the statement “Indiana is a mostly Republican state, so the majority should be able to draw our districts to benefit Republicans whenever they want.” Across party lines, as Count US IN interprets the polling data, “voters said they do not support outside political interests from Washington meddling with Indiana’s maps.”
The polling also found that if their lawmaker voted for a plan to redraw Indiana’s congressional maps, 23% would be more likely to vote for them (13% much more likely; 10% somewhat more likely); 45% less likely to vote for them (39% much less likely; six percent somewhat less likely); 12% were not sure, and 21% said their vote would be unaffected.
Pressure from Both Sides
We’ve mentioned earlier this month that the influential MAGA conservative group Turning Point USA was vowing to “support primary opponents for Republicans in the Indiana State Legislature who refuse to support the team and redraw the maps,” and they are not alone. The Trump political operation was assuring Hoosier Republicans this week that they would be there for them if they were there for the maps, while MAGA machine was making it clear that recalcitrant Republicans would be primary targets, and not even earn general election backing.
“The pressure from the White House is intense,” Rep. Ed Clere (R) tells the Washington Post August 23.
Meanwhile, independent groups, constituencies often associated with Democrats, and Democrats themselves were already firing salvoes aimed at avoiding a special session and ramping up against Repubs favoring new maps.
On Tuesday, a contingent of House and Senate Democrats hosted a “Sayonara, Sellouts” press conference and protest at the Indianapolis International Airport to wave goodbye to Hoosier GOP lawmakers headed to Washington, D.C. to meet with the President and Vice President about possible redistricting.
The always entertaining and enlightening Rep. Ed DeLaney (D) offered his colleagues “a series of thought-provoking questions to reflect on” as they flew to Washington, raising some 40,000-foot view issues as well as highlighting some of the immediate political problems this may raise Back Home:
While the current Indiana congressional maps are already gerrymandered, up until now there has been an attempt to convince the public they are fair. If we call a special session to deliberately hand Donald Trump another Republican congressional seat (or two), what will this do for public confidence in our elections? What is wrong with the current maps? Were you lying in 2021 when you praised these maps? What does this do to the credibility of our Congress? Would you allow the 40% of Hoosiers who vote Democratic to have any representation in Washington? What does this say about the value of Hoosier voters? What does this say about the value of voting at all? How will this benefit Hoosiers? How does this further the interests of Indiana? What precedent does this set for elections going forward? What comes next? Is there a limit of what the Trump Administration can ask of you? Who is paying for you to travel to Washington to be pressured? The most important question I must pose is: what will your grandchildren think of your actions?
MSNBC covered the festivities, using earlier video from Rep. Lucas, and then going live with Rep. Matt Pierce (D), who cattily observed of talk that Republicans believed they were entitled to additional seats, “I remember when Republicans didn’t believe in entitlements.”
Also this week, MADVoters, an Indiana 501(c)(4) social welfare organization “that empowers civic engagement and promotes progressive policies through state-level advocacy, outreach, and education,” delivered its own message to the Hoosier electorate on billboards around the state: “Hey Hoosiers, Changing the Rules Mid-Game is Cheating.” On August 7, the Vice President Vance visited Indianapolis, MADVoters held a “Sit-In to Save Democracy” at the State House with hundreds in attendance. Videos they have posted to social media from the event have attracted “millions” of views, MADVoters claims. Capitalizing on that momentum, the group secured funding to amplify their message, via billboards, yard signs, and a public pressure campaign. MADVoters is also encouraging Hoosiers to snap a photo or a selfie in front of the billboard and share it on social media (#nocheating).
Indiana Conservation Voters produced a radio ad that began airing this week in the Indianapolis market . . . with plans to run statewide starting next week. The ad also focuses on the “cheating” message, and triggers all the hot spots: blaming Washington insiders for forcing Hoosiers to spend millions to redraw maps approved just three years ago, and pitting democracy against a political power grab. “Hoosiers don’t cheat,” the ad reminds listeners, and we need to protect our vote and get lawmakers “back to focusing on our real problems.”
Intriguingly, while pro-redistricting forces are gearing up for the 2026 elections, they are not operating in the mainstream or social media space that those opposed to a special session have occupied.
What a Special Session Might Entail
When you hear about a special session, all the talk has been focused on redistricting alone. However, top GOP leaders quickly came to the understanding that a special session cannot be justified by new maps alone. They have to add a sweetener to give members something to trumpet back home as a victory – not for the Republican Party or the Trump Administration, but for voters themselves.
We’re picking up strong signals that the spoonful of sugar that Republican leaders seem to have settled upon to help the remap medicine go down is property tax reform . . . or at least an antidote of sorts (or in part) to the property tax reform enacted in the form of SEA 1-2025. That means that as we fix maps that are just four years old, we may also be adjusting the property confusing tax package – just three months old – that has met with local disfavor and resulted in wheel taxes galore being enacted throughout the state (you should be reading our Hannah News Service sister newsletter INDIANA TRANSPORTATION INSIGHT to keep track of those), as well as cuts in local government services and school employees (and yes, we have a newsletter for that, too!).
There is still plenty of time to pivot from property tax changes to something else that might curry favor with the public at large, but we’re currently hearing that unit caps on tax increases – perhaps even combined by county to an extent – could be on tap as a short-term rider to make the idea of a special session costing as such as $375,000 by some good estimates more palatable . . . or even justifiable.
What will also be interesting to watch is, in the event of a special session, whether leaders opt to schedule hearings on potential maps. The last time out of the blocks, three hearings were conducted to gather input, with some on the road (actually, two were scheduled, and a third was later added when leaders were reminded that one of the hearing dates fell on a Jewish high holiday).
However, the prospect of hearings around the state is politically fraught. Republican members of Congress (with the early exception of U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R)) assiduously avoided town hall meetings for fear that they would deteriorate into raucous (and dangerous) anti-Trump grievance sessions. A Newburgh town hall meeting convened by Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith (R) – the president of the Senate – “was cut short not long after the redistricting question was raised,” reports the New York Times, and locals arrested by local law enforcement authorities over disturbances. Leaders are bearing this – and those endless hearings on matters in recent sessions on topics such as vaccine mandates, transgender school sports bans, partisan school board elections, and the like – in mind as they contemplate the process.
Meanwhile, Democrats are already plotting out town hall sessions of their own to communicate their position on the issue and keep what they view as a toxic issue for Republicans in front of voters.
Leaders want to protect their institutions and insulate their members, and it may be difficult not to do so with regional hearings on mid-term maps that Hoosiers are hearing emanated from Washington, just like the top-down, non-organic call for those maps in the first place. Because of the likelihood that the maps will be pre-determined means for decimating the remaining two “Democratic districts,” Democrats will have primed their backers for testimony that will attack not just the maps but the motives, and that can’t turn out well for the supermajority.
While it’s difficult to simply not allow for any hearings (or break with precedent and justify the lack of a series of regional hearings on a decidedly statewide matter with local import and impact), you should prepare for the likelihood that if there are any hearings, they would be in Indianapolis, and perhaps even limited in duration and held in the evening (to ensure access to all from around the state, of course) to limit the immediate impact of television news and social media coverage.
Population Standards and Legal Recourse
So what about the maps themselves? As we told you last week, the word from D.C. was that the maps drawn Inside the Beltway would not add more Democratic votes to five of the current seven Republican-held seats, a condition precedent of sorts for the unanimous (if still reluctant) backing from the entire Indiana GOP U.S. House delegation.
Here are the current Trump margins by congressional district:
CD Member 2024
1 Mrvan (D) Even
2 Yakym (R) + 27
3 Stutzman (R) + 31
4 Baird (R) + 29
5 Spartz (R) + 17
6 Shreve (R) + 33
7 Carson (D) – 41
8 Messmer (R) + 36
9 Houchin (R) + 30
To make the two Democratic districts more than merely purple will require some creative cartography, and it will have to be done with an eye toward judicial standards that have largely evolved over the two generations since the mid-1960s before starting to – first slowly, and, more recently, more rapidly –backslide or the past decade or so. D.C. Republicans seem confident that they can exercise legislative legerdemain that will pass muster with courts today.
Last week, we mentioned that there were some different options that the General Assembly could abide by in drawing new maps.
We asked whether the legislature would feel compelled to update the 2020-21 census data that was the foundation for the zero-deviation congressional maps that Rep. Tim Wesco (R), who chaired the House Committee on Elections and Apportionment, touted at the time . . . or whether there would be a push to update the data with new interim special census data that leaders of rapidly growing communities have funded to boost the amount of federal dollars distributed to their respective communities.
If the mid-decade redistricting includes special census numbers, we noted that would mean Boone County and Hamilton County will likely be able to increase their vote clout by being bigger factors in any new districts that are drawn . . . and also likely force stagnant or dying rural areas into larger, less compact or contiguous geographic districts. Using data from different periods that would favor certain rapidly growing (read: prosperous) communities, and could perhaps lead to an equal protection judicial challenge of first impression, we told you.
Since then, others have suggested to us that lawmakers could take another potentially risky course and base their mapmaking decisions on the estimated census data since the most recent official decennial census in 2020 . . . but estimates have never been preferred by the courts, and, in Indiana, might even work out worse for those rural counties whose population is seen to be decreasing more rapidly than suburban areas across the state (metro Louisville; south Lake County and northern Porter County; Aboite Township in Allen County; and the metro donut, for example).
Since we were last with you, a coalition of voting rights groups and minority voters filed a challenge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso, seeking to block the newly approved congressional maps in Texas from taking effect. The plaintiffs claim the districts as drawn discriminate against Black and Latino voters. League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Abbott, No. 3:21-cv-00259-DCG-JES-JVB.
One of the briefs supporting their opposition to the maps explains that “irrespective of the individual district configurations, HB 4 as a whole violates the Equal Protection Clause for two reasons: its districts are malapportioned due to uneven post-census population growth.” Here are some sections of the brief from one of the individual plaintiffs that are directly relevant to the points we had raised last week (we’ve omitted some citations).
[Y]ears of subsequent, uneven population growth in Texas have produced substantial deviations, so that the actual number of people in the districts as of the date of enactment varies widely. Moreover, because the 2019-2023 ACS is a five-year average, and Texas’s population has continued to grow, these numbers likely understate the deviation significantly.
There is no question that these population disparities “could have been avoided” by simply maintaining Texas’s existing districts. Tennant, 567 U.S. at 759. States generally “operate under the legal fiction” that plans remain constitutionally apportioned for ten years after they are adjusted for a given census. Georgia v. Ashcroft, 539 U.S. 461, 488 n.2 (2003). But the purpose of that legal fiction is to “avoid constant redistricting, with accompanying costs and instability,” as population patterns shift. LULAC, 548 U.S. at 421 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has never applied that legal fiction to uphold an unnecessary, mid-decade change to districts that had already been enacted by the state legislature. Cf. id. at 416 (explaining that where the prior plan was court-drawn, “a lawful, legislatively enacted plan should be preferable to one drawn by the courts”). To do so would perversely convert a protection against “constant redistricting” into a license for it. See id. at 422 (noting that the test “turns not on whether a redistricting furthers equal-population principles but rather on the justification for redrawing a plan in the first place”).
Texas cannot meet its burden to establish that “these population differences were necessary to achieve some legitimate state objective.” Tennant, 567 U.S. at 760 (quoting Karcher, 462 U.S. at 741). The mid-decade redistricting was not “necessary” at all. Courts “are willing to defer to state legislative policies” that “require small differences in the population of congressional districts” only “so long as they are consistent with constitutional norms.” Id. (emphasis added) (quoting Karcher, 462 U.S. at 740). Texas’s unprompted, unprecedented decision to engage in mid-decade redistricting when it already had a legislatively enacted plan falls far short of this standard. Because Texas can offer no justification for these extreme deviations, HB 4 is unconstitutionally malapportioned.
The brief was drafted by attorneys with the Elias Law Group LLP, “the nation’s largest law firm focused on representing the Democratic Party, Democratic campaigns, nonprofit organizations, and individuals committed to securing a progressive future.” Founder Marc Elias, a former top Democratic Party litigator, tweeted earlier this week that if Indiana redistricts at mid-decade, he will sue. “I did promise that Republican states that capitulate to Trump’s demands to illegally gerrymander their maps will be sued. And history shows I never bluff and usually win.”
“As the [White House] meeting unfolded,” reports POLITICO’s Adam Wren and colleagues, “Indiana Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita came out in favor of the plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts, which the White House considered a win, because Rokita has previously opposed the use of political data in redistricting.”
Indeed, we told you that AG Rokita has long been at odds with the Senate Majority Caucus, dating back to his stance as secretary of state leading to the 2012 redistricting process that maps should be drawn by an entity other than the General Assembly. When he was unsuccessful in doing so, he beat the man who became Senate majority floor leader two years later . . . when the majority drew Rokita out of the congressional district he represented (he moved and won again).
So, as we told you earlier this month, there was some real concern among some lawmakers and the Governor about where Rokita might be in having to possibly defend a set of new mid-decade maps. But he left no question about where he stood this week, releasing a statement contending that “illegal aliens” skewed the California census, and “Indiana must fight back.”
The AG explains:
The 2020 Census was fundamentally flawed for many reasons, including because it counted millions of illegal aliens in states like California, who should not be in our country and are not eligible to vote. Noncitizens have no voice in electing our lawmakers in Washington, so using them to inflate congressional representation is not only unfair but also completely dilutes the voices of Hoosiers and American citizens. Rewarding states that violate federal law with sanctuary policies and actively act as a magnet for illegal aliens, pulling them into their communities, not only creates a perverse incentive but also punishes law-abiding states and erodes the integrity of our democratic process.
Therefore, consistent with my reform initiatives from when I was Indiana’s Secretary of State, I strongly support efforts to move forward with redistricting Indiana’s federal congressional seats. As Indiana’s Attorney General, my office will be tasked with defending the maps passed by the General Assembly in court, and if passed, I am fully committed to ensuring those maps reflect the will of Hoosiers and withstand legal scrutiny. I’m done bringing a knife to a gunfight against aggressive, nonstop left-wing tactics. It’s time to fight on an even playing field and secure fair representation for our state.