By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
August 22, 2025
The Indiana Friends Committee on Legislation is not planning to flash any daggers.
Joining the other nonprofits and advocacy groups trying to derail the push for a mid-decade redistricting at the Indiana Statehouse, IFCL is sticking to the principles of the Quaker faith and relying on conversation, rather than confrontation. Even as legislators throw figurative punches and elbows in what one Democratic representative has called a “knife fight for democracy,” Indiana Friends is holding steadfast.
“I always hope that we can bring a sense of calm and discussion. Reasonable discussion, that’s always our hope,” Diana Hadley, a member of the Indianapolis-based IFCL, said. “We don’t have any knives that I know of. That’s not usually the way we do things.”
Redrawing the congressional district map five years before the next decennial census is not usually the way the state legislature does things, but Gov. Mike Braun and Republican lawmakers are being pressured by the Trump administration to reconfigure the nine districts to unseat one, or possibly both, Hoosier Democrats on Capitol Hill. This is believed to be part of the effort by President Donald Trump to ensure Republican victories and keep the House in GOP hands after the 2026 midterm election.
Braun, House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, and Senate President Pro Tem, Rod Bray, R-Martinsville, have remained noncommittal while some GOP legislators have publicly stated their opposition to a mid-cycle redistricting.
Still, the grassroots organizations that joined the All IN for Democracy coalition and advocated for fair maps when the Indiana General Assembly redrew the legislative and congressional districts in 2021, are mobilizing, again. The groups are relying on the traditional tools of advocacy – phone calls, letters, conversations, petitions, and hope – to convince state lawmakers to leave the maps alone.
Although advocates often struggle with a lack of money and resources, the Hoosier organizations have had some advantages in advancing their position.
In particular, many of the groups were already acquainted through their work as part of the All IN coalition. They have increased their capacities by coordinating their activities and not duplicating their efforts.
Maria Douglas, co-chair of Hoosier Asian American Power, pointed to the anti-redistricting petition Common Cause Indiana has been circulating and said her group has been promoting the petition to members of the Asian American community as a way to educate more people, especially those in marginalized communities, about the issue. Also, she said, working together brings the more obscure benefit of enabling her members to stay healthy and focused, so they are able to reach out more effectively and listen to what others are saying.
“HAAP is very community-care centered,” Douglas said. “We believe that in order to be able to provide that community care that we have to take very good care of ourselves, because if we burn out, if we are not eating, if we are not sleeping, if we are not staying hydrated and doing the things that we need to do to care for ourselves, then we won’t be able to do this work long-term.”
Voter-advocacy groups and Democratic legislators blasted the idea of a mid-decade redistricting by staging rallies and press conferences on Aug. 7, the day that Vice President JD Vance visited with Braun and Republican leadership at the Statehouse to discuss the possibility of redrawing the congressional maps this year. Since then, the grassroots organizations say they have been encouraging Hoosiers to oppose a mid-decade redistricting by calling or writing their state representatives and senators.
Neither the Republican nor the Democratic caucuses in the Indiana House and Senate responded to requests for the number of constituent calls lawmakers have received since Aug. 5, when Braun confirmed rumors that Vance was coming to Indiana.
The Trump administration and pro-Republican entities have been becoming more forceful in getting state legislators to support redistricting. President Trump invited Indiana Republican lawmakers to come to the White House on Aug. 26 for a meeting about his policy goals, which likely could include a discussion about redrawing congressional lines. Also, Forward America’s robocalls have been pressing Hoosiers to encourage GOP legislators to revise the maps.
Linda Hanson, president of the League of Women Voters of Indiana, said her group is trying to activate its members to contact their legislators with the simple message of “Don’t try this.” She noted the GOP supermajority did everything it could after the last census to create a congressional map that strongly favors Republicans and attempting to tinker with it now will only anger voters.
“It’s going to be a negative if you do it now, because it’s clearly political,” Hanson said of redistricting. “If they think that going to the White House and having their arms twisted will (get Hoosiers to) forgive them, it won’t. They’re supposed to be serving the citizens in Indiana and this will further create distrust.”
Hadley, of the Indiana Friends Committee on Legislation, agreed, saying she fears any effort to add another Republican or two to the Indiana congressional delegation will cause people to stop voting altogether. They will believe, she said, that their voice does not matter.
Acknowledging that calling a legislator and leaving a message can feel as if you are “just yelling out into the wind,” Hadley said speaking to those in power means taking “a leap of faith” that the message will be heard. She recalled writing to the late U.S. Rep. Andrew Jacobs Jr., an Indiana Democrat who served on Capitol Hill for all but two years from 1965 until 1997, and telling him, in a bit of a tongue-in-cheek manner, that she was adopting him as her congressman. Frustrated with the representative from her congressional district, she believed Jacobs reflected her views better.
Jacobs sent a handwritten note back, saying he would be happy to represent Hadley.
“That kind of made me realize that the message does get through to some people,” Hadley said. “You just have to find the right moment, the right person to receive the message.”
Members of the All IN for Democracy coalition, led by Common Cause Indiana, expanded its message earlier this week by releasing a thank-you letter to the nine Indiana Republicans in the Statehouse who have rejected redistricting in the middle of the decade. Just a few paragraphs long, the letter applauded the lawmakers for standing against “attempts to undermine the will of the voters” and asked them to “remain on the right side of history and oppose this blatant and cynical attempt to make mapmakers more important than voters.”
In the accompanying news release, Common Cause highlighted the Goliaths that grassroots groups are having to counter in the redistricting fight. Specifically, the Indiana chapter claimed out-of-state political action committees and national political figures were pressuring state representatives and senators to support redrawing the congressional boundaries.
“We call on all Hoosier legislators to resist the efforts of out-of-state political groups who want to treat Indiana voters like we’re red or blue pawns in a chess game to gerrymander themselves to victory in the mid-term elections,” Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, said.
In addition to capitalizing on the collaboration fostered by the All IN coalition, the nonprofits are building on the momentum and energy of the opposition that has been growing since Trump returned to the Oval Office. Indivisible Central Indiana has encouraged its members to join the several marches and rallies held at the Statehouse this year to protest the president’s policies and actions.
Hanson said the increased activism has drawn more people to participate and allowed grassroots efforts to attract more attention by becoming more vocal and more visible.
“There are multiple ways that different organizations are trying to get their members to do things,” Hanson said. “So I think we’ve seen that more people are willing to sign on to letters or to call their congressman’s office or call their legislator’s office than used to be the case.”
Indivisible Central Indiana has joined the fight against redistricting. The group is telling its members to contact Braun, who must first exercise his authority as governor and call a special session before lawmakers can return to the Statehouse to redraw the maps.
Douglas said the grassroots groups alone will not be able to stop the redistricting. They will have to motivate Hoosiers across the state to reiterate over and over to elected officials, “This is not what we want.”
For Hoosier Asian American Power, encouraging and prompting people to call and write is especially challenging, she said, because Asian communities in Indiana speak a variety of different languages and dialects. So, the nonprofit has been plainspoken in its messaging, using phrases and words such as “rigging the election” and “cheating” rather than “gerrymandering,” in order to make sure people understand what is happening.
“It seems to be a power play. It seems to be very manipulative to even call for a special session to vote on this,” Douglas said of redistricting. “It’s just costing (Hoosiers) money that we don’t have.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show Indiana Republican lawmakers are scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump on Aug. 26.
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.
