Vice President JD Vance to visit Indiana as Trump pressures GOP states to redistrict

Boston Globe

3 days ago

Vance's visit comes after Texas Democrats successfully stalled a vote there this week on a redrawn congressional map, part of a bid to secure five more GOP-leaning congressional seats at the expense of Democrats before the midterms. The White House's goal is to give Republicans an easier path to maintaining control of the House.
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Indiana is staunchly Republican, but opponents of any redistricting attempt are planning to make their objections known Thursday with protests and a news conference by the two Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation.
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Braun would have to call a special session if he chooses to start the redistricting process, but lawmakers have the sole power to draw up new maps.
Braun's office has not responded to multiple emailed requests seeking more details about Vance's visit.
Republican U.S. representatives outnumber Democrats in Indiana 7-2, limiting the possibilities of squeezing out another seat. The constitutionality of the move would also almost certainly be challenged in court.
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Indiana lawmakers have been wary of the national spotlight in recent years, especially after a special session in 2022 resulted in lawmakers enacting a strict ban on abortions. Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state with a strong base of loyalists to the president.
But Indiana is also home to Mike Pence, the former vice president and a past governor whose more measured approach to partisan politics still holds sway among many state lawmakers.
The GOP would likely target Indiana's 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state's northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen as a possible pickup in recent years as manufacturing union jobs have left the area, said Laura Merrifield Wilson, a professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis.
Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable towards Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes that also gave a boost to the GOP in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.
Mrvan won reelection in 2022 by a respectable margin and easily retained his seat again in 2024. In a statement Tuesday, Mrvan said the Trump administration knows its policies are 'wildly unpopular.'
'They know that their only hope to maintain control is to pressure the Indiana General Assembly to violate the Indiana Constitution and redistrict U.S. House of Representative(s) seats mid-decade,' he added.
The more dramatic option would be to zero in on Indiana's 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis.
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Indiana's legislative leaders, House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, held their same positions four years ago when the Legislature finalized the new maps. Both expressed approval of the final product and said the borders fairly reflected the makeup of the state.
'I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,' Bray said at the time.
Both leaders have been quiet on the possibility of a special session. Bray and Huston's offices did not respond to multiple messages left over the phone and email Wednesday.
Republicans hold a supermajority in the Indiana House and Senate, meaning Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend.
Julia Vaughn, director of Common Cause Indiana, said a costly redistricting process will not look good for Republicans who tightened the belt on the state budget this past legislative session due to revenue forecasts. Common Cause is one of the leading groups nationally opposing Trump's push to redistrict.
'I don't think there is any way they could rationalize spending taxpayer dollars to come back to Indianapolis to redraw maps that were just drawn four years ago for purely partisan purposes,' Vaughn said.