Indiana Says No

     Indiana's where I live, and it's a pretty conservative place.  It's full of stubborn people, and if you want them to change how they do things -- anything -- you'd better be filling a genuine need.  Hamilton County's road system has more roundabouts than anywhere in the U.S., but it only happened after decades of explosive population growth and four-way-stop gridlock that made getting anywhere at rush hour a crawlingly slow and frustrating experience.

    Indiana, like many other GOP-dominated states, has been under pressure from the Trump administration to redraw U. S. House districts and help retain the GOP trifecta in Washington, DC in the 2026 general election.  We've got nine districts; all but two of them are easy wins for Republicans.  Those two -- Marion County/Indianapolis/Seventh District, and the Chicago-adjacent  First District -- are about as strongly Democratic.  The proposed map split the Democrat strongholds; Marion county got it worse than Caesar's Gaul, hacked between four districts that extended deep into rural areas, most running all the way to the state boundaries.

     This wasn't a secret effort; the intention was well known and the maps were published.  Indiana doesn't have any rules against partisan gerrymandering.  But it didn't sit well with voters.

     I think there were two main issues.  One was that the changes were sweeping.  Your old, familiar House district would be gone, possibly taking your old, familiar U. S. Congresscritter with it.  In central Indiana, there was concern that "four millionaires from Indianapolis" would be speaking for primarily agricultural, rural areas, whose concerns would be underrepresented.  And the move was petty: with the GOP holding seven of the nine districts, they've already got a commanding lead; two more wouldn't make a big difference.

     For all those reasons, and plenty more, our state Senate rejected the effort, 31 to 19.  There are fifty seats; Republicans hold forty of them, so it doesn't take a math whiz to work out that 21 of the No votes came from Republicans.  When you can't sell a majority of your own party's state Senators on it, maybe redrawing the Congressional map isn't such a great idea.

     The legislature doesn't get another bite at the apple until Spring, too late to redistrict ahead of the mid-term elections.