Indiana House Republicans voted Friday to go along with President Donald Trump’s demand for redrawing the state’s congressional maps.
The House action sends the congressional redistricting issue to the state Senate, where its Republican leader has said for months that too few senators are in support for it to pass.
House members voted 57-41 in favor of the new maps crafted to produce a 9-0 Republican delegation by carving up the districts currently held by Democratic Reps. André Carson in Indianapolis and Frank Mrvan in the area along Lake Michigan near Chicago.
Twelve Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill.
Democratic lawmakers denounced the proposed redistricting as a racial gerrymander for dividing Carson’s 7th District — the state’s most urban and racially diverse — among four new districts. Those extend far into rural heavily Republican counties, with two of the proposed districts stretching to the Ohio River and another nearly reaching Lake Michigan.
Republican Rep. Ben Smaltz, author of the redistricting plan in House Bill 1032, maintains the new districts were drawn “purely for political performance” of GOP candidates.
Attention will now turn to the state Senate, which is scheduled to take up the proposed maps beginning Monday.
Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray has repeatedly declared too few senators are in support for redistricting to pass. But under political threats from Trump and Gov. Mike Braun, Bray announced two days before Thanksgiving that senators would make a Statehouse return to “make a final decision on any redistricting proposal sent from the House.”
Trump started the national redistricting fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw its congressional map this summer. The pressure on Indiana Republicans has included trips in August and October by Vice President JD Vance to Indianapolis.
This story will be updated.
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