By GARRETT BERGQUIST
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
Braun
Gov. Mike Braun on Tuesday said lawmakers have only about another month or so to ask for a special session on redistricting.
State lawmakers already must convene in early January for the 2026 regular session. Candidate filing begins on Jan. 7. Braun said he thinks “we’re going to get there” on redrawing Indiana’s congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm elections but there will be a point beyond which lawmakers won’t have enough time to get the job done. When News 8 asked at what point it would be too late to call a special session, Braun replied, “That would probably be mid to late November.”
Braun’s comments came on the same day opponents of redistricting delivered another 10,000 petition signatures against the idea to the Statehouse. Organizers with groups including Common Cause Indiana, Indiana Conservation Voters and the League of Women Voters said they have collected a total of 20,000 signatures to date from all 92 counties.
Megan Robertson, Indiana Conservation Voters executive director, said those numbers show just how unpopular mid-decade redistricting is.
“When you look at Frankfort and Greenfield and Lebanon, a lot of these towns, that’s more Hoosiers than they have in that population,” Robertson said. “So, to me, it just sends a really clear message that folks do not want this. They would like the governor to focus on issues that matter to them and impact their everyday lives instead of trying to cheat to win some elections for Washington insiders.”
Since 1994, the president’s party has always lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the first midterm following the president’s election, except for 2002. President Donald Trump this summer began pressuring Republican lawmakers in GOP-led states to redraw their Congressional maps ahead of the midterms to more heavily favor Republicans.
Texas lawmakers responded first, approving a map designed to gain an additional five Republican seats in the House. California lawmakers countered with their own map to add five Democrats, though that map requires voter approval. Then, Missouri lawmakers approved a map designed to flip one of their state’s two Democratic-held seats, currently held by longtime Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver. North Carolina lawmakers are currently working on a map intended to flip one seat held by Democratic Rep. Don Davis.
Indiana lawmakers have been under tremendous pressure from the White House for months.
Vice President JD Vance flew to Indianapolis in August to meet with Braun, House Speaker Todd Huston, and Senate President pro tempore Rod Bray on the subject. A few weeks later, White House officials brought up redistricting during a previously-scheduled meeting in Washington with Indiana legislative Republicans. Then, on Oct. 10, Vance returned to Indianapolis, this time to meet with the entire Indiana House and Senate Republican caucuses. On Friday, President Donald Trump himself urged Senate Republicans to redraw the map during a phone call.
Members of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus on Monday said any effort to redraw Indiana’s Congressional map would disenfranchise voters of color. Andre Carson’s 7th District is the only one in the state in which white voters do not hold an outright majority and Frank Mrvan’s 1st District has the highest Hispanic population of any district in Indiana.
Republican lawmakers have said no formal map proposals have been circulated but one widely-seen hypothetical map online has shown Marion County getting divided up among three districts. State Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, said Republicans already did something similar with the current state Senate district map, which divides up Fort Wayne among state Sens. Liz Brown, Justin Busch, Travis Holdman, and Tyler Johnson, all Republicans.
“The Republicans have a history of being able to do this and do this in a manner that doesn’t violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” Taylor said. “So we are predicting that they will do the same thing [with Congressional districts].”
Braun said he does not believe changes to the congressional districts midcycle would disenfranchise any voters. “We want to make sure that what we end up with makes competitive districts across the state to where everyone’s vote is represented. And yes, if it does happen, when it does, those will be the key considerations in terms of what we do.”
State law requires lawmakers to convene for one day regardless on the third Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year, that date falls on Nov. 18.
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/indiana-redistricting-special-session.