In the newest signal of resistance to President Donald Trump’s push to redraw congressional strains, the Republican chief of Indiana’s state Senate on Friday stated his chamber received’t meet for a particular session to create extra GOP seats.
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray stated there aren’t sufficient votes to move a new map.
“Over the last several months, Senate Republicans have given very serious and thoughtful consideration to the concept of redrawing our state’s congressional maps,” Bray stated in a assertion. “Today, I’m announcing there are not enough votes to move that idea forward, and the Senate will not reconvene in December.”
However, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun – who had referred to as the particular session on the behest of Trump, Vice President JD Vance and the president’s political allies – indicated he wouldn’t relent from his demand that lawmakers collect to vote on new strains.
“I called for our legislators to convene to ensure Hoosiers’ voices in Washington, DC are not diluted by the democrats’ gerrymandering,” Braun stated in a assertion. “Our state senators need to do the right thing and show up to vote for fair maps. Hoosiers deserve to know where their elected officials stand on important issues.”
Indiana is the newest stumbling block in Trump’s high-stakes quest to remake congressional districts forward of subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections. Republican lawmakers in Kansas even have resisted calls to open a particular session to redraw the state’s congressional map, though Kansas lawmakers might weigh new strains concentrating on the state’s lone congressional Democrat when legislators return for his or her common session early subsequent 12 months.
Democrats want to acquire simply three seats within the US House after subsequent 12 months’s midterms to take management of the chamber and doubtlessly block elements of Trump’s agenda through the closing two years of his White House time period.
Indiana Republicans maintain supermajorities within the state House and Senate. They additionally maintain seven of the state’s 9 congressional districts — however Trump had eyed the Democratic-held 1st District in northwestern Indiana and the seventh District in Indianapolis as doable avenues to add Republican-leaning districts and bolster his celebration’s slim House majority.
Trump’s political operation instigated the mid-decade redistricting arms race this 12 months after they persuaded Texas to create 5 extra GOP-friendly seats. So far, GOP-led mapmaking efforts have redrawn seats in 4 states – Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio – to add a whole of 9 potential seats to the Republican column.
Last week, Californians voted by a giant margin to approve 5 extra Democratic-friendly districts, which represents the most important tranche of seats Democrats can safe by a map change in a single state. On Thursday, the Trump administration’s Justice Department joined a legal challenge that seeks to block the California map from going into impact.