Indiana lawmakers reject Trump’s new political map

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Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after the vote, Trump downplayed the Indiana result, saying he “won in every other state.” He also said he expected the president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate, who voted against the map, to lose the next primary.

The map’s rejection in the state Senate, where Republicans hold 40 of 50 seats, came after months of presidential pressure that grew increasingly intense in recent weeks as it became clear that some holdouts weren’t budging. Trump named some of them on social media, openly questioning their party loyalty and promising to support their primary opponents.

As the debate became more tense, several Republicans, for or against the new map, reported threats or attacks. Long-standing ideological and stylistic divisions among Indiana Republicans emerged, with many longtime figures or institutionalists opposed to the map clashing with Trump-aligned conservatives who favored the plan. Republicans were projected to lose the only two Democratic congressional seats among the state’s nine districts if the new map was approved.

Ultimately, a slim majority of the Senate Republican caucus voted against the map.

The fact that Indiana lawmakers initially voted showed the enduring power Trump wields over his party. Many members of the state Senate did not want to debate the map, which was proposed outside of the normal once-a-decade redistricting cycle, and House leaders relented and put the bill up for a vote only after the president and his allies stepped up their pressure campaign. The map’s defeat, however, revealed the limits of the tycoon’s power to bend Republicans to his will.

“I think the bill is unconstitutional,” said Sen. Greg Walker, a Republican who opposes redistricting and who recently reported an incident of crushing at his home, a form of harassment in which the police were called in a false emergency.

Another Republican opposed to the new map, Sen. Spencer Deery, said he “sees no justification that can outweigh the damage it would do to the people’s confidence in the integrity of our elections and our system of government.” He added that “it’s time to say no to pressure from Washington, D.C.” and that “it’s time to say no to outsiders trying to run our state.”

Republican supporters of the plan have touted the new map as a way to offset Democratic electoral gerrymandering in other states and increase the chances of a Republican majority in Congress. Some of them spoke in alarming terms about what it could mean for the country if Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

— I don’t want to wake up the morning after the November election and find out we lost the House of Representatives by one vote, said State Senator R. Michael Young, a Republican who supports redistricting.

State Sen. Mike Gaskill, another pro-redistricting Republican, said:

— President Trump is not forcing us to do this. He encourages us to do what is right. Stand up and fight.

The redistricting arms race that began this summer with Texas Republicans and quickly spread across states and parties has shown signs of cooling in recent weeks. Kansas Republicans rejected a Trump-backed plan to consider a new map in a special session, and Maryland Democrats were publicly divided over reapportionment. Illinois’ Democratic governor did not immediately call for a new map, but told local reporters that his state could redraw its map if Indiana proceeds with redistricting.

Indiana senators debated the map Thursday as redistricting protesters gathered outside the chamber, chanting phrases such as “Fair maps now!” » Democrats criticized the proposed map, calling it cynical and unfair, arguing that it divided like-minded areas in order to maximize Republican political influence.

Indianapolis, the state’s Democratic stronghold, would have been divided into four districts under the proposed map. These districts would have combined urban neighborhoods with conservative rural counties. Some Democrats questioned whether dividing the city, which has significant black and Hispanic populations, constituted illegal racial gerrymandering.

“By any standard of good governance, this is an unprecedented and deeply cynical exercise of political power,” charged Sen. JD Ford, a Democrat who opposes redistricting, during a committee hearing earlier this week. —And it’s the old adage: just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should.

After the vote, some Republicans called for moving on and focusing on other issues, while others pointed to implications of the debate over redrawing congressional districts that still lie ahead.

Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican who favors redrawing congressional districts, said in a statement that he was “very disappointed that a small group of misguided state senators have sided with Democrats to reject this opportunity to protect Indians with fair maps and reject President Trump’s leadership.”