Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, speaks during a legislative redistricting hearing as Republican Rep. Tim Wesco, chairman of the Indiana House Elections Committee, looks on at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on Aug. 11, 2021.
FILE – In this July 27, 2021, file photo, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos speaks at the Capitol in Madison, Wis. Advocates for redistricting reform hope informal citizens commissions created in a number of states can draw public attention to partisan gerrymandering and its consequences. While the commissions have no official role, their supporters hope to use them to pressure the real map-makers to temper their political inclinations. When the Wisconsin panel was announced, Vos, a Republican, criticized it as a “fake, phony, partisan process.” But he recently told The AP in an email that the Legislature is open to suggestions from anyone, “and if the Governor or his commission submit a plan, we will take a close look at it.”
FILE – In this March 18, 2020, file photo, Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore, talks to reporters during a break, in Annapolis, Md. Advocates for redistricting reform hope informal citizens commissions created in a number of states can draw public attention to partisan gerrymandering and its consequences. While the commissions have no official role, their supporters hope to use them to pressure the real map-makers to temper their political inclinations. Maryland’s top lawmakers appointed themselves to a separate “advisory commission” that will hold a dozen meetings. Ferguson, a Democrat, said voters “instilled their trust in this institution” to conduct redistricting.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks during a news conference, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, in Annapolis, Md. Advocates for redistricting reform hope informal citizens commissions created in a number of states can draw public attention to partisan gerrymandering and its consequences. While the commissions have no official role, their supporters hope to use them to pressure the real map-makers to temper their political inclinations. Faced with legislatures controlled by opposing political parties, Hogan has formed citizens commissions to make recommendations to lawmakers responsible for redistricting.
FILE – In this July 27, 2021, file photo, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos speaks at the Capitol in Madison, Wis. Advocates for redistricting reform hope informal citizens commissions created in a number of states can draw public attention to partisan gerrymandering and its consequences. While the commissions have no official role, their supporters hope to use them to pressure the real map-makers to temper their political inclinations. When the Wisconsin panel was announced, Vos, a Republican, criticized it as a “fake, phony, partisan process.” But he recently told The AP in an email that the Legislature is open to suggestions from anyone, “and if the Governor or his commission submit a plan, we will take a close look at it.”
The Census Results: What is Apportionment?
The Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission held numerous public hearings. It produced a report prioritizing redistricting criteria. Soon, the bipartisan panel will cap its work by drafting new voting maps for Indiana’s nine U.S. House seats and 150 state legislative districts based on the latest census data.
Despite all that work and its official-sounding name, the commission created by a coalition of advocacy groups has no official role in Indiana’s redistricting process. The actual line-drawing is being done by the Republican-led Legislature, which could ignore the commission entirely and use its overwhelming majorities to create districts that help the GOP continue to win elections for years to come.
Rather than amounting to a mere exercise in futility, advocates for redistricting reform hope the Indiana commission and similar efforts elsewhere can draw public attention to partisan gerrymandering and pressure the real mapmakers to temper their political inclinations. If that doesn’t work, they hope their alternative maps ultimately could be implemented by judges resolving redistricting lawsuits.
“We think our process will produce better maps — maps that better serve the interests of voters and communities,” said Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, which helped form the citizens commission.
The once-a-decade redistricting process has ramped up with the recent release of 2020 census data showing how populations have changed in neighborhoods, cities and counties since 2010. U.S. House and state legislative districts must be redrawn to rebalance their populations. But mapmakers can create an advantage for their political party in future elections by packing opponents’ voters into a few districts or spreading them thin among multiple districts — a process known as gerrymandering.
