INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana lawmakers unveiled a new draft of legislative maps Monday morning that would solidify some Republican congressional seats, while making one Democratic congressional seat nearly certain to shift into Republican hands.
The maps proposed in the Senate Elections Committee this morning would make major changes to Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly’s 2nd District, in north-central Indiana.
Lawmakers are proposing to drop Howard County, which includes the Democratic-leaning city of Kokomo, as well as part of Democratic-leaning LaPorte County, and add all of Republican-leaning Elkhart County and much of strongly-GOP Kosciusko County, among other changes.
“It’s going to be much more difficult” for Democrats to keep that seat, said Julia Vaughn of Common Cause/Indiana, a non-partisan good-government advocacy group.
The changes to Donnelly’s district were expected, and Donnelly has said he is considering running for the U.S. Senate or governor instead of re-election because he anticipated them.
But they were among the most readily apparent moves in congressional maps that apparently mirror those that will be unveiled later Monday in the House Elections Committee.
Senate Elections Committee Chairwoman Sue Landske, R-Cedar Lake, said each congressional district includes close to 720,000 people.
The 8th District, represented by freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, would keep its population bases of Evansville and Terre Haute and remain attached to Indiana’s southwestern edge.
However, the district would lose some of its rural northern counties, and add some rural counties to the east, instead.
Lawmakers are proposing to move Dubois, Spencer and Perry counties and part of Crawford County into the 8th District, while also dropping all of Putnam and Warren counties and part of Fountain County.
Using the results of the 2010 Indiana secretary of state’s race as a baseline, those changes would leave the partisan makeup of the district essentially unchanged.
The 9th District, represented by another freshman Republican, U.S. Rep. Todd Young, would see bigger changes.
State lawmakers are proposing to stretch the district from the suburbs south of Indianapolis to those north of Louisville, Ky. – chopping southeastern Indiana out of the district and shrinking its geographic size in the process.
Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said one benefit is that Johnson County, which is just south of Indianapolis and includes the cities of Greenwood and Franklin, would all fit within one congressional district, rather than its current three.
“There’s no perfect solution when you have such a wide swath of rural area to cover,” Long said. “We have some large population bases and a lot of small towns. We tried to keep that all in consideration. I think it’s vastly improved.”
Johnson County is heavily Republican. Its inclusion would allow the district that includes left-leaning Bloomington to become safer for Young, in spite of changes that move Indiana’s suburban area northwest of Cincinnati into Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Pence’s revamped 6th District.
The state Senate districts representing Southwestern Indiana, each including roughly 130,000 people, would not change much under the drafts proposed Monday.
District 48, represented by Sen. Lindel Hume, D-Princeton, would remain focused on the mostly rural area surrounding the state’s southwestern corner. It would extend further south to include all of Spencer County.
District 49, represented by Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, would still contain all of Posey County, as well as the western half of Vanderburgh County and the southern portion of Gibson County. It would grow slightly in size to make up for the 16,000 people who have moved out of the current district since 2001.
District 50, represented by Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, would remain based in the east side of Evansville and the west side of Warrick County, including Newburgh. The current district has grown in population by nearly 10,000 people over the last decade, so some of its outer edges would be chipped away and shifted into other districts.