By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
February 15, 2024
Indiana municipalities and school corporations that failed to redraw their district maps following the 2020 U.S. Census could be getting a little reprieve as Senate Bill 135 continues to steamroll through the Statehouse.
Fueling the bill’s progress is a desire to protect local governmental units from being hauled into court.
Counties, cities, towns and school corporations in Indiana were supposed to have either redistricted or certified their voting districts within two years after the 2020 decennial census. However, a January 2024 study from the Indiana Local Government Redistricting project found many local governmental units across the state did not redraw their district maps by the deadline, so now they are vulnerable to litigation.
SB 135, authored by Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, would extend the redistricting deadline to June 30, 2025. The measure sailed through the Indiana Senate on a 49-to-0 vote, and appeared before the House Elections Committee Wednesday where it passed on an 11-to-0 vote. It now moves to the House and, if it passes in its current form, will head to Gov. Eric Holcomb for signing.
Gaskill, whose district includes the city of Anderson, which is currently being sued for not redrawing the council districts in decades, told the committee members he did not want other municipalities facing such legal actions.
“That’s really the impetus for the bill is to prevent other lawsuits,” Gaskill said, “because, as I understand the code as a nonlawyer layperson, I think, the locals without this bill are unable to redistrict until the next census and the only way they could do it is if they had a court order which would actually encourage more lawsuits and, I think, be expensive for taxpayers.”
A federal lawsuit was filed against Anderson in June 2023 with the plaintiffs alleging the city’s failure to redraw the election maps has violated the U.S. Constitution and state law by disenfranchising voters in the overpopulated districts. The court denied the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in October 2023 and the plaintiffs are now seeking summary judgment.
Gaskill said he was unsure how SB 135 becoming law would impact the Anderson litigation but he speculated having the redistricting deadline extended “may end up being a possible solution for that lawsuit.”
Both Gaskill and Bradley King, Republican co-director of the Indiana Election Division said even if SB 135 lands on the governor’s desk, the parties in the Anderson dispute will probably continue to fight over who should pay the attorney fees.
The city of Gary faced a similar lawsuit because it has failed to redistrict. After the parties settled, the court ordered Gary to pay the plaintiff’s attorney fees of $67,380.
Job of attorneys to keep localities compliant
None of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Anderson – including Common Cause Indiana, the Anderson-Madison County NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Indiana – nor anyone else opposed SB 135 during the House committee hearing.
Kristina Byers and Lisa Hochstetler of Indiana Local Government Redistricting spoke in support of SB 135. They also recommended the state implement some kind of system to notify local governments when to redraw their district maps or the same lapse in redistricting will occur after the 2030 decennial census.
Byers and Hochstetler said the notification must be specific. While municipalities and school corporations should know whether they need to redistrict or recertify, many do not, they said, so the state has to communicate clearly which local governmental units must redraw their maps.
“Although the responsibility lies, I guess, with the local governments, since they’re not aware, … we do need to identify someone to make them aware that they do have to redistrict or not,” Byers said. Also, perhaps, guide them through their statutes so that they can determine what kind of districts they have, because that’s important, too, on whether they have to redistrict.”
Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield, was resistant to Byers’ call for a larger state role. He said the attorneys hired by the cities, towns and schools have the responsibility of making sure the local governmental units are in compliance with state statutes, including redistricting.
Gaskill agreed.
“If we’re going to run for office, we got to learn the job and learn the responsibilities and conduct them according to the law,” Gaskill said. “And that also goes with picking an attorney to represent the local unit of government. We don’t want to just pick somebody that’s our best friend. We want to pick somebody who is going to, if they’re going to represent us and local government, then they also have a duty, I say, every bit as much as the officeholder to learn the law, and follow the law.”
Dwight Adams, a freelance 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.
