The third and final piece of Indiana’s redistricting puzzle is in place, with Senate Republicans releasing their proposed new map of the chamber’s 50 seats.
The map eliminates a southeast Indiana seat and creates a new open seat in Indy. Four pairs of incumbents end up pitted against each other: Democrats Lonnie Randolph and Frank E. Mrvan in Lake County, Republicans Phil Boots and Brian Buchanan in a district covering Crawfordsville and most of Boone County, and a cross-party matchup in Madison County, with Pendleton Republican Mike Gaskill facing Anderson Democrat Tim Lanane.
Clark County has Republican Senators Chris Garten and Ron Grooms in the same district, but Grooms has already announced he won’t run for a fourth term.
Lanane, the former Senate minority leader, already represents a district which voted for former President Donald Trump — the redrawn district trends even more Republican. The map shores up a handful of Republicans in potential swing districts, and replaces an already light-blue Lake County district with an even swingier district in the county’s southwest quadrant, giving Republicans a shot at adding to their 39-11 supermajority.
The new Indianapolis seat south of downtown means 10 of the 50 seats are partly or entirely within Marion County, one more than the current map. Fast-growing Hamilton County will have five seats, the same as it has now, but with the Gaskill-Lanane district grabbing a slice of the county while Indianapolis Democrat Fady Qaddoura is pushed entirely into Marion County.
Democrats have charged the House and congressional maps released last week are a Republican-tilted gerrymander, and contend the Senate map is even worse. Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray (R-Martinsville) says it’s the opposite of a gerrymander. 65 counties are entirely within a single Senate district, 16 more than the current map. 10 of the remaining counties are too big to fit in one district. And Bray says when districts couldn’t strictly observe county lines, they mostly followed other existing boundaries, with 96-percent of townships and 92-percent of cities and towns undivided.
The House will vote on the Senate map before the Senate itself does, on Thursday. Bray says that doesn’t mean a public hearing on the new districts on Monday won’t carry weight. He says the maps could still be changed in response to public input.
Final Senate approval is expected next Friday. The House will be on standby to reconvene the same day to vote on any changes made in the Senate.
