Senate Republicans on Wednesday would not answer if they individually or collectively favor redrawing Indiana’s Congressional maps.
Senate Republicans met for more than two hours behind closed doors at the Statehouse early Wednesday afternoon. Such private meetings, called caucus meetings, are routine for both parties when the legislature is in session but rare outside of session. Senators on their way to the meeting refused to answer where they stood on changing the maps or where they believed the caucus as a whole is on the matter.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, told News 8 Senate Republicans would not have met if they weren’t seriously considering calling a special session.
“They did not meet to decide on a special session to deal with data centers that are consuming utilities across the state of Indiana,” he said. “But they are seriously contemplating, they are meeting today to make a decision on gerrymandering Indiana to steal two Congressional seats. And to me, that is serious, it is concerning. It is antidemocratic.”
The meeting comes more than a month after Vice President JD Vance’s visit to the Statehouse to lobby for new, more heavily Republican Congressional maps and two weeks after the Trump administration hosted dozens of Statehouse Republicans in Washington. That previously-scheduled trip covered numerous policy matters. Lawmakers have said redistricting did come up during those discussions but only briefly.
Voting rights groups are escalating pressure on state lawmakers to leave the maps as they are. Billboard ads have begun popping up around the state lobbying against a special session and voting groups turned in 8,900 petition signatures on Tuesday calling on Gov. Mike Braun, House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President pro tempore Rod Bray to ignore pressure from the Trump administration to change the maps. A poll of more than 1,600 voters conducted in August by the left-leaning research firm Change Research found 52% of respondents either strongly or somewhat opposed redrawing the maps. Another 15% said they weren’t sure. Just 34% said they strongly or somewhat supported any changes.
When state lawmakers drew Indiana’s current Congressional maps in 2021, using data from the 2020 census, they held public hearings around the state. Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, said she remembers attending one of those hearings as a private citizen. Hunley was elected to the state senate in 2022.
“I would not call this redistricting. I think that redistricting is a legitimate process that takes place once every 10 years, after the census,” she said. “This process is not going to include any of that. This is straight rigging.”
Braun has the sole authority to call a special session. He has repeatedly said he’s willing to do so but only if House and Senate Republicans both clearly signal they want to proceed. House Republicans are expected to meet on Friday.
Any attempt to redraw Indiana’s maps likely would need to happen before candidate filing for the 2026 midterms begins on Jan. 7. Lawmakers also will have to begin preparing for the 2026 legislative session in November.
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