And there is so little time to point them out.
The Indiana House of Representatives adopted its ill-conceived plan to redistrict the state’s congressional maps mid-decade. If ever there was a “solution” in search of a problem, this is it.
Apparently, Indiana’s congressional maps, which were adopted less than five years ago by many of the same Republicans who say the districts now are an affront to justice, are an emergency that justifies the expense of calling the Indiana General Assembly into session in December.
Other things—ever-increasing inflation, declining job creation—don’t rise to emergency status because they affect only the lives of ordinary Hoosiers.
But the need to rig the maps ahead of the 2026 midterm congressional elections is of crucial importance to one person.
President Donald Trump.
Trump is terrified that a U.S. House of Representatives in Democrats’ hands and armed with subpoena power will uncover evidence that, during his second term, he’s been running wild like that raccoon who got loose in a liquor store and whose antics went viral before the inebriated creature passed out.
Because Trump is so scared, he does what he always does when he’s under pressure.
He tries to cheat.
The author of the bill creating the new maps, Indiana Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, acknowledged as much when he said the redistricting was gerrymandering for partisan rather than racial reasons.
That’s significant for two reasons.
The first is that Smaltz and his fellow Republicans already are creating a line of defense to meet the likelihood of a lawsuit should their maps clear the Indiana Senate. The courts have ruled that gerrymandering for political reasons is acceptable, but targeting minorities is not.
Given that one of the focuses of Smaltz’s bill is to remove the only Black member of Indiana’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Indianapolis—who was re-elected in 2024 with nearly 70% of the vote—from office, there will be suspicion that racial considerations played a role in the deliberations.
Those suspicions won’t be tamped down by the determined refusal of Smaltz and his fellow Republicans to adopt any amendments proposed by their Democratic colleagues to evaluate whether the new maps would disenfranchise minorities before adopting them.
Democrats, it seems, also can play the legal maneuvering game.
The other reason Smaltz’s admission matters is that it acknowledges exactly for whom he and his GOP colleagues work. A hint: Their first duty isn’t to the people of Indiana.
At the same time, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales—both of whom spend almost as much time defending themselves against allegations they’ve violated either ethics rules or the law as they do breathing—issued a hyperventilating press release.
After an exhaustive study, these two deep thinkers reported that they’d found 165 non-citizens on Indiana’s voter rolls—and that 21 of these non-citizens actually cast ballots. They crowed that they’d found massive evidence of voter fraud, even as critics charged that they were engaged in a “witch hunt.”
Hmmm.
Hoosiers cast nearly 3 million ballots in 2024. Even if the results Rokita and Morales said they’d turned up were real—more on that in a second—that means the massive voter fraud accounted for 1/10,000th of the Indiana electorate.
Wow, that number is almost sub-atomic.
Even so, it matters—because voter fraud is a crime, one that should be punished.
I wonder if there is any way Indiana’s secretary of state, who oversees the state’s elections, and Indiana’s attorney general, who enforces the state’s laws and protects its interests, could figure out if there’s a place where the veracity of their claims could be tested?
And if there have been people voting in Indiana elections who shouldn’t be, a place where the guilty could be held accountable for their crimes?
Like, say, a courtroom?
Given that both Rokita and Morales treat the truth as if it were an infectious disease and put as much distance between them and it as they can, testing their claims in court, where things like evidence matter more than press releases do, would go a long way to reassuring people that Indiana’s attorney general and secretary of state aren’t just bleating more nonsense.
Normally, idiocy in Indiana peaks during legislative sessions and election cycles.
This year, though, we seem to be starting early.
Lucky us.
