New Indiana Senate districts revealed

Sep. 22—The redrawing of Indiana's political boundaries sparked disagreements once again this week, and the new lines in west-central Indiana got a share of that attention.

Some residents in the region will see their representation in the Indiana Senate change as a result of the redistricting process.

The Senate's District 38 has grown geographically, because the west-central Indiana population shrank, according to 2020's decennial census. The population of the Terre Haute metropolitan statistical area (or MSA) — which includes Vigo, Vermillion, Parke, Clay and Sullivan counties — dwindled by 2.1% during the past decade. Indiana's only other MSA to lose population in the 2020 census was Muncie.

So, District 38 was expanded, geographically, to include enough residents to make it numerically equitable with other districts, size-wise.

The decisions on how to shape the districts were made by the Republican Party, which holds super-majority status in the Indiana General Assembly.

The proposed Senate Elections Committee map was released Tuesday. It shows District 38 growing to include all of Clay County, instead of just half of its townships, as was the case previously.

It also includes all of Vigo County, as it's been since the last redistricting after the 2010 census. Curry and Jackson townships in Sullivan County would also be added to District 38 if the proposal goes through.

The proposed maps undergo a Senate Elections Committee hearing on Monday. Any amendments come Tuesday, followed by a vote. The redrawn maps for the Indiana House and state congressional districts will also be considered by the Indiana Senate next week. Final approval by the General Assembly could come by Oct. 1.

District 38 isn't the only local Senate district with changes. The proposal for District 23, directly north of Vigo County, would lose portions of Montgomery, Boone and fast-growing Tippecanoe counties. The alteration would leave District 23 without an incumbent state senator.

Democratic Party representatives from the state, regional and local levels criticized the redrawn districts at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. The Republican-led redistricting is a "form of extreme partisanship," as Vigo County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Etling and 8th Congressional District party chairperson Thomasina Marsili put it, aimed at solidifying the dominant party's power.

Vigo County Councilman Todd Thacker said the last redistricting a decade ago, also guided by Republicans, had an adverse outcome for Hoosiers. "Did we get a good result the last time?" Thacker said, citing the GOP legislation that led to the Right to Work law, a shift in state funds toward private and charter schools, and a nullification of local health departments' decision-making in crises such as the pandemic.

A majority of Hoosiers want a legislative map that keeps more counties, cities, towns and townships intact, rather than split among multiple districts, said Sen. Jon Ford, the Republican incumbent who represents District 38. Residents that showed up at nine statewide forums by the Senate Elections Committee considered that a priority, Ford said Tuesday in a phone interview.

"From the feedback we got throughout the state, there was really an interest in keeping counties whole, cities and towns whole and townships whole," Ford said.

Making the districts more politically balanced wasn't a consideration, he added. "Not that I'm aware of," Ford said. "The main focus was the shifting population. When you look at the population shifts, the numbers are what the numbers are."

Ford cited a statistic that 88% of local elected offices statewide are held by Republicans. "We've not even approached that in the General Assembly," Ford said. Republicans hold a 71-29 edge in the Indiana House and a 39-11 edge in the Indiana Senate.

Those chambers of the General Assembly should be closer to 60% Republican, according to Christopher Warshaw, a George Washington University political scientist commissioned by the group Women4Change Indiana to analyze the state's districts. In an Indiana Public Radio report, Warshaw pointed out that Republicans draw 54% to 59% of Hoosier votes in statewide races, meaning Hoosiers aren't as predominantly Republican as the Legislature's makeup implies.

To create more politically balanced districts, legislators in charge of the process would have to prioritize such equity, said Andrew Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Purdue University at Fort Wayne.

"First, today's technology makes it easier to consider more complicated combinations of variables when drawing maps," Downs said Tuesday. "Second, it may not be possible to make the percentage of seats held by each of the two major parties match the two-party distribution of the statewide vote, but it should be possible to close the gap between those numbers. It is likely that would happen only if that was a stated criteria for evaluating maps."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.