Illinois Dems applaud Indiana Senate voting down Trump-backed remap
The majority-Republican Indiana Senate on Thursday rejected a mid-decade redistricting plan to give the state two additional GOP members of the House of Representatives, a stark rebuke to President Donald Trump’s push to try to maintain a congressional majority in next year’s midterm elections.
Needing 25 votes to pass, only 19 Indiana state senators supported the plan, which the Indiana House had already approved, while 31 senators rejected it. The remapping was designed to expand Indiana’s 7-2 Republican delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives to 9-0. The state Senate chamber includes 40 Republicans and 10 Democrats, meaning a majority of its Republican caucus came out against the rare mid-decade redistricting push.
Illinois played a role in the debate. Supporters of the effort cited Democratic-led states, such as Illinois, to argue that Indiana needed to act because Congress’s highly partisan boundaries have denied the GOP proper representation in Washington, DC. Illinois’ current map resulted in a 14-3 Democratic majority in its congressional delegation.
Led by Governor JB Pritzker, Illinois Democrats awaited the outcome of the Indiana vote, warning that Illinois was prepared to respond by redrawing its own boundaries in an attempt to oust at least one additional Democratic district from the United States if Indiana Republicans had approved the new map. For now, it appears Illinois will withdraw from this effort.
“Our Indiana neighbors have resisted Trump’s threats and political pressure, choosing instead to do what’s right for their voters and our democracy,” Pritzker said in a statement on X. “Illinois will remain vigilant against his map-rigging – our efforts to respond and stop his campaign are being heard.”
Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives Emanuel “Chris” Welch called Indiana Republicans who voted against the overhaul “courageous” and said they “rightly resisted Donald Trump’s gerrymandering plans.”
“To protect and preserve our Republic, we need more Republicans across the country to stand up and fight against the tyranny of Trump and MAGA,” Welch said in a statement. “In Illinois, we remain vigilant and committed to protecting our democracy.”
But Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun, who pushed the mapping overhaul effort at Trump’s request, said he was “very disappointed that a small group of misguided state senators have joined forces with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps and to reject President Trump’s leadership.”
“Ultimately, decisions like this come with political consequences,” Braun warned in a statement on X, echoing Trump’s comments that Republicans opposed to the overhaul could face Trump-backed opponents in next year’s primaries. “I will work with the president to challenge these individuals who do not represent the best interests of Hoosiers.”
The vote in Indianapolis took place on the 209th anniversary of Indiana statehood, and many speakers during the nearly three hours of debate sought to give the legislature’s actions a historic tone.
The Senate sponsor of the House-passed plan, Sen. Mike Gaskill of Pendleton, said the nation’s deep political divisions represented a “second civil war” and urged House Republicans to “stand up and fight” against Democrats, telling them they could be “Churchills” or “Chamberlains.”
“The rhetoric we’re hearing from the national Democratic Party is absolutely insane. I know you don’t support this,” he told Republican members, “but they are inciting people to commit heinous acts. We must stop the evil now.”
Showing a map of Illinois’ congressional districts, Gaskill said, “The very things they’re accusing us of doing with this (new Indiana map), they’re doing for their political advantage and they’re watering down your voice.” »
Conservative Sen. Greg Goode of Terre Haute reflected tensions among Republican lawmakers over the decision to prioritize loyalty to Trump over voters’ feelings. He declared his “love” for Trump and his team in their efforts to push for a new map, but said his voters guided his vote against it.
Goode lamented that the nation’s political polarity outside the state has “now very blatantly infiltrated Indiana’s political affairs — misinformation, cruel social media posts, exaggerated pressure from inside and outside this statehouse, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence.”
“Friends, we are better than that. Aren’t we?” he asked. “We cannot afford to continue to get carried away by all this noise. We need to redirect our attention to what really matters,” and he urged his colleagues to rely on “more common sense.”
Other Republicans, while expressing their commitment to conservatism, said the map lines drawn by a foreign GOP consultant divided areas of common interest and pushed some rural areas into the urban area of Indianapolis. The bill would have split the 1st District, currently held by U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan, a Highland Democrat, into two, and the 7th District, currently held by U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indianapolis, into four districts.
Democratic Sen. JD Ford of Indianapolis said government “works best when we listen to the people who elected us to serve,” but he said “this map doesn’t do that.”
“One thing the vast majority of Hoosiers have said is that they don’t want to, and I don’t want to live in a country where our republic is as fickle as this legislation requires,” Ford said.
But Sen. Liz Brown, a Fort Wayne Republican, argued that Republicans were underrepresented in the House of Representatives and that the new map was needed to ensure Indiana conservatives had a stronger voice in the nation’s capital.
“The United States is waiting. The United States is waiting to make sure that we move forward as a democratic republic, not as a socialist-democrat country,” she said.
Brown said that although critics of redistricting say “the holier-than-thou voices will be harder to hear, without it, they will be silenced because there will be no conservative voices in Washington, D.C..”
Sen. Chris Garten of Charlestown was among the most vocal in saying the state’s Republicans needed to help Trump in Washington by adopting the new map.
“Make no mistake, over the last four years our country has been burning. Only now, over this past year, are we starting to clear the smoke and see the light again,” Garten said, comparing Trump to his predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden.
“The White House, our partners in Washington, asked us for help. (…) They did not ask us for money and they did not ask us for blind loyalty. They asked us for reinforcements,” he declared. “By passing on this card, we amplify the voice of the Hoosier value system that is currently saving this country.”
Sen. Michael Young, an Indianapolis Republican, went so far as to compare the vote for the map to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Harry Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces, saying they were not universally popular short-term measures but necessary.
“I don’t want to wake up the morning after the November election and find out that we lost the (U.S.) House of Representatives by one vote. If I knew I did that, I would feel horrible,” the lawmaker said. “Only a handful of districts across the United States will determine who controls Congress, and we may or may not do our part today to keep our nation in Republican hands and do the right things for our state.”
Allies of Trump and the White House had spent several months trying to pressure Indiana Republicans to take up the issue of redistricting against internal GOP opposition among institutionalists who did not want to break the traditional redrawing of districts after the federal census based on new demographics.
On Wednesday night, the day before the vote, Trump complained about the reluctance of Indiana Republicans, saying other GOP-led states had adopted redistricting in the middle of the decade “voluntarily, openly and easily.” He also called Republican Senate President pro tempore, Rodric Bray of Martinsville, someone who “likes to be the only person in the United States of America who opposes Republicans getting additional seats.”
Trump also encouraged primary challenges against Republicans opposed to the new map.
“Rod Bray and his friends will not last long in politics and I will do everything in my power to make sure they do not harm the Republican Party and our country again,” he wrote. “One of my favorite states, Indiana, will be the only state in the Union to reject the Republican Party!” »
Kulkulka is a reporter for the Post-Tribune. Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune contributed.
