Indiana’s House District 18 stretches from Warsaw south to Marion. District lines will be revised this summer.

Alexandra Kukulk
Post-Tribune

INDIANAPOLIS – When states are given the opportunity to redraw district lines every 10 years following the census, it is common for the political party with the majority within the state to redraw districts in their political party’s favor, known as gerrymandering.

Indiana legislative officials announced Thursday that the legislature will likely have to hold a special session over the summer because of a delay in the completion of data from the 2020 census, which was supposed to be ready by the end of 2020.

The U.S. Census Bureau is aiming to deliver population figures used for divvying up congressional seats by the end of April, with legislative district information sometime after July. The Indiana General Assembly’s 2021 session ends in April.

Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause Indiana, said the nonpartisan organization was excited to hear that Indiana will review redistricting in a special session.

“One of our asks in terms of reform has always been that you take this out of the regular session because there’s hundreds of different bills and lots of distractions and redistricting is so important. It lays the fundamentals for elections in our state for the next decade, so that’s something that we should solely be focused on,” Vaughn said. “Time is on our side for once.”

Sheila Kennedy, a professor with the O’Neil School of Public and Environmental Affairs with the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said gerrymandering creates “safe seats,” which ensures a politician a long career in politics and depresses voter turnout.

“Both Republicans and Democrats, depending on who is in control, draw them to give themselves as many safe seats as possible, to cram as many of the opposite party into as few districts as possible, and the result is that there are very few competitive races for the statehouse,” Kennedy said.

Gerrymandering disenfranchises voters, creates competitive primary races and less competitive general races, and allows politicians to pick their voters not the other way around, Vaughn said.

“That really is like letting the empire not only call the baseball game but be one of the players,” Vaughn said. “It’s an obvious conflict of interest.”

To understand the history of gerrymandering in Indiana, it’s important to look back to 1991, which “was a pivotal redistricting year” when the senators realized “they could use this process to improve their electoral outcomes,” Vaughn said.

Before 1991, the state Senate was composed of 26 Republicans and 24 Democrats, whereas in the current Senate there are 39 Republicans and 11 Democrats, she said.

In 2001, Democrats had control of the state House of Representatives, while the Republicans had a “growing majority” in the Senate, Vaughn said.

In 2011, the Democrats fell into “a distinct disadvantage” because they did not have control of either chamber of the general assembly or the governor’s office. Since then, Republicans have had a supermajority and Democrats “have very little say in the process,” she said.

“All of this it, it really isn’t just about Republicans or Democrats trying to gain a political advantage, this has real impact for Hoosiers. We have consistently, over the past decade, ranked in the bottom 10 in terms of voter turnout, and partisan gerrymandering absolutely is the biggest reason for that,” Vaughn said.

In Northwest Indiana, a mostly Democratic part of the state, House District 15 and District 19 flipped from Democrats to Republicans in the 2020 election. The seats have flipped between the parties a few times in the last decade, and Vaughn attributes that to gerrymandering.

“It’s because Republicans did a very good job of divvying up Lake County to find those Republican voters where they are and spread them out to impact the most races that they can,” Vaughn said.

While Lake County is still “going to be an uphill battle” for Republicans, the more power Republicans hold in the state will give them an opportunity to chip away at the Democratic hold in the county, Vaughn said.

Porter County is an example of less competition in races over the years because the county has seen more Republican candidates win in Porter County as Republicans downstate have had continued control of redistricting, Vaughn said.

The takeaway from all this, Vaughn said, is that who draws the map is the most important part of the redistricting process, which is why Common Cause advocates for a multi-partisan group of citizens to lead redistricting.

“People with no direct interest in the outcome. People who are politically interested and engaged, but that will not be running in the districts,” Vaughn said.

The next question, Vaughn said, is how the maps should be drawn.

The federal government gives two criteria for redistricting: Equal population and racial representation (which is why the census is an important part of the process). Indiana has a state statute that require districts to be connected at all points, she said.

Common Cause advocates for adding more criteria because with just two rules in place, it’s easy for politicians to redraw districts with their interests in mind, she said.

One added criteria, Vaughn said, is drawing districts without considering where the incumbent candidate lives. If an incumbent candidate no longer lives in their district as a result of redistricting, he or she has to run again in the new district they live in, which increases competition, she said.

“We need to have criteria because that really provides a lot of transparency in the process,” Vaughn said, adding that is the “third leg of the stool” in redistricting reform.

The lack of transparency in redistricting has been “problematic” in Indiana, Vaughn said.

While Indiana offers public comment on redistricting, the legislature allows for public comment before a redistricting map is presented, Vaughn said. If a resident wanted to address the considered redistricting map, he or she had to travel to Indianapolis to make public comment on the day the map was discussed, she said.

In 2011, there were 17 session days between when the House members introduced a redistricting map and the governor signed the map into law, she said.

“Blink and you missed it. That obviously did not provide much time for public input,” Vaughn said. “This process needs to happen out in the open, and it needs to be inclusive.”

SOURCE: This article was made available through the Hoosier State Press Association.