ANDERSON — In 2001, three Indiana senators represented portions of Madison County.
Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, had a majority of the county; Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, had the western portion; and Doug Eckerty, R-Yorktown, had just one township, Van Buren in the northeastern corner of the county.
In 2011, after districts were redrawn using the 2010 census, the state senate districts changed dramatically.
Lanane’s 25th district, which had been exclusively in Madison County, is now mostly a Delaware County district. Kenley’s district has retreated back across the Hamilton County line, and Eckerty now represents all of Madison County except Anderson.
“When they brought me in to show me my district, I almost didn’t recognize it,” Lanane said. “It basically got turned on its side.”
The same can be said for the county’s Indiana House districts, which have expanded, contracted and been contorted in various directions over the past two redistricting sessions.
Redistricting is a necessary task in order to make sure all districts are similar in population. Under the Indiana constitution, the responsibility of redrawing districts every 10 years is given to the state legislature.
The problem: The political party in control of the legislature gerrymanders districts to give its candidates — particularly its incumbents — a better shot at winning elections.
Lanane says gerrymandering has led to uncompetitive elections, killing voter interest. Of the 125 legislative elections last November, 54 were uncontested. And the margin of victory in most of the contested races was wide.
The 2014 election, the first for Lanane since the districts were redrawn, marked the first time he hadn’t had a Republican challenger since he was first elected to the senate in 1998.
“This is just my opinion, but it seems like they packed as many Democrat voters into my district as possible,” Lanane said.
Eckerty ran unopposed in November, his first election in the new, mostly rural district. Lanane said the Democratic Party was unable to find a candidate to run against Eckerty.
“I don’t like the idea of uncontested races, either way,” Eckerty said. “I understand you’re going to have some, but you don’t want to have too many of those.”
Eckerty, Lanane and other legislators are considering new ways to redraw districts that would distance politics from the process.
“I think the idea seems to be gaining some traction in the Statehouse,” Eckerty said.
The Indiana legislature passed House Bill 1003 last session, establishing a special two-year study committee to consider changing the redistricting process. Lanane is a member of the study committee.
Solutions elsewhere
Several states have implemented an independent commission either to advise the legislature or to complete the redrawing process.
According to the Bowen Center for Public Affairs at Ball State University, 13 states have commissions with some authority to draw district lines. The amount of power that rests with these committees varies by state.
The Bowen study, co-authored by BSU’s Joseph Losco and Raymond Scheele, noted some commissions have almost total autonomy while others, such as those in Maine, New York and Vermont, are only advisory.
Iowa has taken a unique approach in allowing its legislative services agency, a non-political organization, to draw the maps and submit them to the state legislature for approval.
Lanane said the Indiana redistricting study committee would take a hard look at several options to determine whether one might be a good fit for Indiana.
Committee chair Rep. Gerry Torr, R-Carmel, hopes the establishment of a commission is a step forward.
“Coming to any kind of consensus on the best option may be difficult,” Torr said. “Some people have stated they want to try and keep communities of interest together when possible. Others are in favor of making districts as competitive as possible.”
Torr has served in districts where he represented two or three cities or counties and had to weigh his constituents’ needs. Now, thanks in part to Carmel’s growth, his district is more compact.
“I have one city, one county and one mayor,” Torr said. “It makes it a lot easier.”
Given Indiana’s rural expanses, that kind of cohesion for all districts is impossible. But Lanane believes some districts can be made more compact. Some House districts spread across five or six counties. For example, Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero, represents northern Madison County and areas of four other counties.
Low voter turnout
Lanane’s biggest concern is the secondary impact of gerrymandered districts. They lead to uncontested races, which discourage voter turnout. It’s hard to draw a direct line between gerrymandering and voter apathy. But Lanane notes that low turnout in 2014 coincided with an abundance of uncontested legislative races.
According to Ball State’s Scheele, two conditions are the primary motivators for voters: an intensely competitive election, or a highly popular candidate, such as Barack Obama in 2008.
“If there’s an uncontested race, it’s easy for people to say, ‘I don’t need to vote, it doesn’t matter,’” Scheele said.
The Ball State professor cautioned, however, that districts with a better balance of power between the two major political parties won’t necessarily stay balanced, nor will they necessarily promote competitive elections.
“You have a tremendous amount of change in those districts over the 10-year time frame,” Scheele said. “You can see population shifts by as much as 20 percent in some cases.”
Clustering of voters in certain areas further frustrates efforts to achieve political balance within districts.
“Studies show that, except in few instances, independent redistricting commissions fail to promote more competitive elections as some advocates claim,” Scheele and Losco wrote. “Instead, the evidence regarding lopsided partisan majorities in many statehouses points to geographical clustering of partisans of one or another party, making it difficult to apportion voters without violating political boundaries.”
Although taking the boundary-drawing pen away from legislators might not result in perfectly balanced districts and competitive elections, Scheele noted that the participation in redistricting of an independent commission does result in more voter confidence.
“In a state like Indiana where all but one congressional district in 2014 was won by a margin of victory of 20 percent or greater and almost a quarter of General Assembly elections were uncontested, voter confidence may be a significant factor in considering whether or not to adopt an independent commission for redistricting.”
Re-imagining redistricting
Determining the best redistricting process for Indiana is the charge of Torr’s study committee. Dozens of options exist for the process of creating an independent commission and for defining such a commission’s authority.
Lanane noted that the state constitution would have to be amended if lawmakers decide to give up their ability to redraw districts. An amendment would have to be passed by both houses of the legislature and ratified by voters.
If Indiana decides instead to let a commission draw boundaries for the approval of the General Assembly, a constitutional amendment might not be needed.
“This is going to be a long process,” Lanane said.