This story was originally published by the Limestone Post.
By Steve Hinnefeld
Limestone Post
September 2, 2025
Republican legislators, worried their party will lose its majority in the next election, make a controversial decision to redraw legislative maps mid-decade. Democrats, in the minority, walk out to stop the move. Texas in 2025? No, we’re talking about Indiana in 1995.
Thirty years ago, Hoosier lawmakers resolved their dispute over redistricting despite strong feelings on both sides. Mark Kruzan, who was at the center of the fight as a legislator from Bloomington and the House minority whip, said that was possible because Republicans and Democrats trusted each other and were willing to compromise.
Today, with the Indiana Republican supermajority legislature poised once again to redraw maps in their favor, that’s much less the case. “I don’t see a way out of it anymore,” Kruzan said. “And what’s to say we won’t just do this every couple of years if the public doesn’t prevent it?”
While the 1995 and 2025 redistricting fights had similarities, they were different in several ways, said Kruzan, who served in the Indiana House from 1986 to 2002 and later served three terms as Bloomington mayor from 2004 to 2016. For one thing, the 1995 dispute was limited to Indiana and focused on state legislative maps. Today, President Donald Trump wants Texas and other red states to protect his majority in Congress. It’s a national issue.
Republicans control seven of Indiana’s nine House seats and both Senate seats, 82% of the state’s congressional delegation. Trump and his allies want maps redrawn to give the GOP eight and possibly all nine House seats. Critics say that would completely disenfranchise Democrats, who typically cast about 40% of the votes in Indiana statewide and presidential contests.
Another important difference, Kruzan said, is that there are no longer strong local news outlets holding their state legislators accountable as they did in 1995. “The loss of independent media has made this a far less democratic country,” he said.
In nearly all states, congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn every 10 years to adjust for population changes in the decennial U.S. census. In Indiana, that schedule is set by Article 4, Section 5 of the state constitution. It was a surprise, then, when Republican House Speaker Paul Mannweiler announced on March 21, 1995, near the end of the session, that he wanted the House to redistrict immediately.
Mannweiler said the House needed to redraw maps to avoid a repeat of the 1988 election, when a 50–50 split forced Republicans and Democrats to share power equally, creating inefficiencies and occasional gridlock. He wanted to reduce House seats from 100 to 99.
Democrats said that was a ruse and that Republicans wanted to preserve their slim House majority. Determined to block redistricting, they left the Statehouse, declared the session was over, and said they would forgo their daily pay. Republicans voted to fine Democrats $75 for every day they were absent; after a week, the fines would double.
“We had members who were very concerned about it, not only about not getting paid but also about the fines,” said Kruzan, who was charged with keeping Democrats in line.
Flying in a plane chartered by the Indiana Democratic Party, Kruzan and John Gregg, the House Democratic leader, rushed to seven Indiana cities, where they held news conferences to argue for their position. “It’s very simple,” Gregg said at Hulman Regional Airport in Terre Haute. “We took an oath to follow the constitution. They [Republicans] aren’t following it.”
Indiana Attorney General Pam Carter, a Democrat, and State Election Board member Brad King, a Republican appointee, produced opinions backing the Democrats. Retired Indiana Supreme Court Justice Richard Givan, a respected conservative Republican, criticized the redistricting plan. GOP legislators insisted the risk of another 50–50 House split was an emergency that required action, but the public didn’t buy it.
Neither, Kruzan said, did the state’s news media. An editorial in the Bloomington Herald-Times was typical. “We never thought we would see the day when we would support a stop-the-show partisan walkout from a state legislative session,” it said. “Now we have seen it.”
But resolving the dispute took compromise on both sides. Republicans agreed to wait to redistrict until 2001. Democrats didn’t try to block unrelated legislation that House committees had passed in their absence. Both parties agreed to immediately change the law so that, in the event of another 50–50 split, the governor’s party would control the House.
No one expected another split to happen, but it did, the very next year. Democrat Frank O’Bannon was elected governor in 1996, upsetting Republican Stephen Goldsmith, the mayor of Indianapolis. Gregg became House speaker and Kruzan was caucus leader. “That’s how I became majority leader without a majority,” Kruzan said.
Democrats controlled the Indiana House until 2002 while Republicans continued to run the Senate. More recently, Republicans have dominated both. Today, they have 70 of the 100 House members and 40 of 50 senators. In 1995, Democrats “had leverage,” Kruzan said. “You had to have us there to form a quorum.” Today, Republicans have a supermajority and can do business without a single Democrat present.
In Texas, Democrats returned to the Statehouse and Republicans pushed through redistricting legislation that’s likely to add five GOP congressional seats. California countered with a plan to add Democratic seats. Suddenly more states were in play.
Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to Indiana on August 7 to promote redistricting, likely focused on tipping northwestern Indiana’s District 1 from blue to red. On August 26, at least 55 Indiana Republican lawmakers were in Washington at the White House’s invitation to hear from Vance and other administration officials. Some indicated they had been persuaded to support the president’s plan, according to the Indy Star. House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray reportedly met privately with Trump to hear his sales pitch. Gov. Mike Braun has seemed open to calling a special session to redistrict.
“I know there are Republicans who have gone on record saying this is not a good idea,” Kruzan said. “But are they really going to stand up to it when Donald Trump says, ‘It’s going to get done, and if you don’t, I’m going to primary you’? And he will.”
Limestone Post is an independent, nonprofit, online magazine committed to publishing in-depth, informative, and inclusive stories about the communities in and around Bloomington, Indiana, and beyond.
