Indianapolis
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Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg mentioned Indiana Republicans are “ashamed of what they’re doing” on Thursday as he rallied opponents of a possible effort by GOP lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional maps forward of subsequent 12 months’s midterm elections to add one or two US House seats extra favorable to the get together.
Buttigieg, the previous South Bend mayor, returned to his dwelling state for an look on the Indiana Statehouse the place he urged Republican state lawmakers who’re being pressured by President Donald Trump’s administration to redistrict to “show some backbone before it’s too late.”
“Refraining from cheating is a low bar,” he mentioned. “But you’ve got to start somewhere, because they are under so much pressure from Washington to do something wrong.”
Even as Buttigieg enters the fray, Indiana Democrats face a frightening political actuality: They haven’t any method of stopping Republican Gov. Mike Braun and the state’s supermajority Republican House and Senate from redrawing its congressional maps to strive to tilt the GOP’s present 7-2 House seat benefit to 8-1 or 9-0.
Braun and GOP legislative leaders haven’t but made a public argument in favor of redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps. However, Braun informed state reporters Tuesday that redistricting “probably will happen.”
“I want it to happen to where the leaders and the legislators feel comfortable with it,” he mentioned.
Braun mentioned in an interview on Fort Wayne’s WOWO radio this week, in accordance to an Indiana Capital Chronicle report, that lawmakers might vote on new maps both firstly of subsequent 12 months’s legislative session in January, “probably more ideally sometime in November.”
That timeline hinted at a potential path to approving new maps with out Braun calling a particular session. Lawmakers usually collect every November for “organization day” — a largely ceremonial one-day begin to the subsequent 12 months’s session wherein newly elected lawmakers are sworn in and legislative leaders are chosen.
Indiana Republicans face a stress marketing campaign from Trump’s White House to add one or two extra GOP-leaning districts to bolster the get together’s probabilities of sustaining its slim House majority in subsequent November’s midterms.
Already, Texas Republicans have redrawn their state’s maps to add 5 extra seats that favor GOP candidates, and California Democrats responded with new maps of their own supposed to add 5 Democratic-leaning seats. The California maps should nonetheless be permitted by voters this November. Missouri Republicans final week passed new maps aimed toward handing the GOP yet another House seat there.
Republican state Rep. Ed Clere informed NCS that Missouri’s approval of new congressional maps final week “has only increased the pressure on Indiana, but for all the wrong reasons.”
“This is being driven by very raw and very cynical politics,” he mentioned.
Clere has been one of many Indiana GOP’s most vocal opponents of mid-decade redistricting. He mentioned doing so “establishes a dangerous precedent,” and mentioned there’s deep opposition throughout the get together to redrawing the maps.
“There are Republicans who are more concerned with upholding principles than with cheating to win elections. And that’s what this is: It’s cheating,” he mentioned. “This is about a lot more than a congressional map or an election. This is about who we are as a people, and whether we are willing to prioritize democracy over politics.”
Multiple Indiana Republican lawmakers, talking on the situation of anonymity, mentioned they anticipate Trump will finally get his method.
The stress on the GOP supermajority has ratcheted up with Vice President JD Vance touring to the Statehouse on August 7 to meet privately with Braun, state House Speaker Todd Huston and state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray.
Indiana’s full seven-member Republican congressional delegation endorsed mid-decade redistricting in social media posts in August, on the identical day state House Republicans have been caucusing to focus on the prospect. The similar month, the White House invited the state’s GOP legislators to Washington to additional press their case.
The matter was prominently featured at Sen. Jim Banks’ Hoosier Leadership for America Summit final weekend, the place state Rep. Andrew Ireland, a supporter of redistricting, mentioned on X he’d spoken about it.
Braun, the first-term Republican governor, famous that some Republican state legislators had initially opposed mid-decade redistricting, however have since reversed their positions.
“You clearly saw certain legislators that had an ‘absolutely not interested’ to where they’re publicly out there changing their mind,” Braun informed reporters this week.
One of these public GOP flips is state Rep. Jim Lucas, who in August repeatedly staked out his opposition to a mid-decade redistricting effort.
After visiting the White House, and within the hours after the taking pictures of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — who had waged a social media marketing campaign to stress Indiana Republicans to redraw their congressional traces, vowing to help major challenges against those that turned Trump down — Lucas mentioned he’d modified his thoughts.
“I am now a rock solid HELL YES for redistricting!” he mentioned on X.
Lucas argued in one other put up the subsequent day that as a result of a Democratic House would impede Trump’s agenda, redistricting “went from a state issue to a national issue.”
The reversal by Lucas prompted an uncommon back-and-forth with one other veteran Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Heath VanNatter, on Lucas’ Facebook web page — throwing the sorts of discussions GOP lawmakers have had in caucus conferences, together with House and Senate members gathering individually final week, into public view.
“I knew you would fold. Maybe you should keep your powder dry next time,” VanNatter mentioned.
Lucas responded by citing Hoosier legislators’ journey to the White House final month and the assassination of Kirk.
“After going to DC and hearing solid information from the federal level of how every Hoosier would benefit by redistricting and now the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I have ZERO problem to publicly come out and explain my changed position,” he wrote.