By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
August 29, 2025
Gathered at the Indiana Statehouse on an unseasonably mild August evening this week, a sizable and energetic crowd let lawmakers know that of all things the legislature needs to do for Hoosiers, redistricting is not even on the list.
The protest on Tuesday was a continuation of the growing public campaign to counter the pressure Indiana Republican legislators are under from the White House to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election. Voting-rights advocates, Democratic lawmakers and concerned citizens chanted, cheered, waved signs, added their names to petitions and applauded as the speakers denounced the push for the Hoosier State to do a rare mid-decade redistricting.
“This isn’t redistricting,” Indiana Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, told the crowd. “This is rigging, this is cheating, and this is throwing Hoosier voters into the garbage. Let’s call it what it is – it’s authoritarianism right here in Indiana.”
Before lawmakers can begin drawing new maps, Gov. Mike Braun has to call a special session to bring all state representatives and senators back to the Statehouse. Redistricting would likely be on the agenda, but legislators could introduce their own bills and try to advance different issues.
Several speakers at the protest offered a list of problems and challenges the Indiana General Assembly could tackle if a special session is convened. Hoosiers are struggling, the speakers said, with the high costs of groceries, utilities and property taxes, while the state ranks among the worst in health care outcomes and affordability, wage growth, pollution and eviction rates.
Amy Courtney, executive director of MADVoters Indiana, noted at a time when state agencies and programs are being cut because of revenue shortfalls, a special session could cost upwards of $30,000 per day. Moreover, she said, taxpayer money has already been used to fund improvements to the governor’s home in Jasper and helicopter rides to and from that residence as well as luxury vehicles for Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales. When Courtney also mentioned the nearly half a million dollars in public money that has been spent, so far, in legal fees to defend Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita against multiple disciplinary complaints, the crowd booed.
“These are real Hoosier tax dollars that could have been spent on public health, pre K, Medicaid, SNAP, disability resources, child care, public media, first responders, public schools and ending the rape kit backlog,” Courtney said.
Indiana has become a battleground state in the mid-cycle redistricting war, since Vice President JD Vance met with Braun and Republican legislative leaders in the Statehouse about three weeks ago. The Trump administration wants the GOP to reconfigure the state’s nine congressional boundaries, so that one or both of the seats currently held by Democratic Reps. Frank Mrvan, in the 1st District, and Andre Carson, in the 7th District, could be won by a Republican in the 2026 midterm election.
Advocacy groups at the protest, including Common Cause Indiana, MADVoters and Indiana Conservation Voters, encouraged the people in attendance to keep speaking up. The advocates told the people to call and write their state lawmakers and to talk about redistricting with their family and friends.
“This is all a distraction from the issues that really matter,” Megan Robertson, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters, said. “We need lawmakers to get back to work on those issues so we can improve the quality of life for all Hoosiers here in Indiana.”
Dressed in a tie-dye T-shirt and holding a handmade anti-redistricting sign, Pam Korba of Indianapolis was not sure the protests and phone calls to legislators would be enough to derail the momentum for redrawing the maps. Still, she said she came to the protest because she wanted to do something to let lawmakers know they will be held accountable.
“I don’t think there is a guarantee that redistricting will result in less Democratic seats,” Korba said, echoing speculation that reconfiguring the congressional districts could make some of the safe Republican seats vulnerable. “But it does say our government folks are more obligated to the current administration than to their constituents.”
Melissa Borja, co-chair of Hoosier Asian-American Power, lingered after the protest had ended with her Italian greyhound, Jollibee Chickenjoy. She said she believes lawmakers do listen and that “tried and true methods” like phone calls and protests can get their attention and, in this instance, cause them to reject a mid-cycle redistricting.
“I wouldn’t be doing the work if I didn’t have some degree of hope and optimism,” Borja said.
Both Rep. Carson and Rev. David Greene, president of Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, accused Republicans of trying to silence the minority vote by focusing the redistricting effort on the 1st Congressional District in northwest Indiana and the 7th District in Indianapolis, which are home to the state’s largest minority populations.
Carson equated the mid-decade redistricting effort to other times in American history when “shortsighted leaders have tried to erase our personhood” by counting Blacks as only 3/5ths of a person, passing Jim Crow laws and establishing the “separate but equal” doctrine. He said the state’s GOP wants to “whitewash those blue districts, which represent a large number of Black and brown and white brothers and sisters who want to do the right thing.”
Greene said “insiders with red pens and quiet rooms” were intent on redrawing the maps to erase the political power of Black communities. The Republican supermajority, he said, is targeting Black and brown working-class communities as well as Carson, Indiana’s only Black congressional representative.
“We must call it what it is – modern-day voter suppression,” Greene said. “It’s being done with software, instead of segregation. It’s being done with district lines, instead of a poll tax. Sixty years ago, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed (into law) because people marched, they bled and died for the right to be counted. Now, in 2025, some want to reverse that progress with the stroke of a pen.”
That message resonated with Lenora House of Indianapolis. She noted her ancestors fought hard so that she and other Blacks could be free, but, today, she said, people have become relaxed and complacent. How to get people more involved was something House and her friends discussed after the protest, and, while she did not have an answer, she had some simple advice to encourage others to speak up.
“If you don’t help yourself,” House said, “no one is going to help you.”
Wednesday morning, Common Cause Indiana amplified the voices of the redistricting opponents by delivering a petition to the GOP legislative leadership. More than 4,000 Hoosiers had signed the document that told lawmakers to protect the current voting maps and abandon mid-decade gerrymandering.
Speaking at the protest, Greene offered a reminder to lawmakers about what they could be doing, instead of redrawing the maps.
“We don’t need a costly, unnecessary special session to redraw what the people never asked to be changed,” Greene said, as several in the crowd responded with a “no.” “We don’t need a single dollar spent on erasing democracy, when that money should be spent on housing, education and health care for our Hoosiers.”
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
