Indiana Joins Growing List of States That Have Completed Redistricting
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Indiana last week became the fourth state to formally adopt new state legislative and congressional district boundaries using data from the 2020 census.
Only Maine, Nebraska and Oregon beat Indiana to the punch.
Indiana’s General Assembly approved the state’s new maps on Oct. 1, and Gov. Eric Holcomb signed them into law last Monday.
Republicans have controlled all branches of the state government since 2011.
According to the Indianapolis Star newspaper, the new congressional district boundaries will enable the GOP to firmly hold onto seven of the nine congressional seats, while one of the remaining two will be a “more reliably Republican district.”
The maps also retain Republicans’ 39-11 advantage in the state Senate and give Republicans 69 of the 100 state House seats, the newspaper said.
Barring a legal challenge, the maps will be used for the 2022 congressional and state legislative elections. But Democrats, who roundly rejected the maps, have already complained the Republicans drew the maps behind closed doors and without input from anyone but members of their own party.
As he signed HB 1581, the mechanism by which he approved the maps, Holcomb expressed satisfaction at the state’s having completed the once-in-a-decade process.
In a slap at the maps’ critics, he went on to thank both the House and Senate “for faithfully following through in an orderly and transparent way.”
By this point 10 years ago, 21 states had already adopted congressional district maps, according to Ballotpedia.
This year’s slow start has been attributed to a lengthy delay in the delivery of census data.
Like Indiana, the other three other states that have gotten their maps done are all led by one party or the other.
In Nebraska, for instance, Republicans control both the governorship and the legislature. In both Oregon and Maine, it’s the Democrats who control both branches of government.
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