By Sydney Byerly
The Indiana Citizen
August 13, 2025
Merrillville, Indiana — Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith backed the White House’s push for Indiana to redraw its congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections, telling attendees at a town hall Tuesday night that Republicans who control the state’s government should “fight fire with fire.”
Beckwith’s calls for Indiana to take the rare step of redistricting mid-decade comes as Gov. Mike Braun and the leaders of Republican supermajorities in the state House and Senate, Speaker Todd Huston and President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, take much more cautious approaches to the possibility. Those three leaders met for an hour last week in Braun’s office with Vice President J.D. Vance, but were noncommittal afterward.
“People say, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s plain politics.’ Well, listen — both sides do it,” Beckwith said. “If you go over to Illinois, they have done the same thing. And I think in Indiana we need to fight fire with fire.”
Beckwith said he will raise the issue with Braun when the two meet Wednesday. He told The Indiana Citizen after the town hall that he had not yet spoken with the governor about the possibility of calling the legislature into a special session to approve new maps.
“President Trump’s the leader of our party,” Beckwith said. “I think it’d be wise to follow his leadership on this.”
Beckwith’s comments come as a redistricting arms race escalates nationwide. Congressional districts are typically drawn once a decade, after the U.S. Census is completed. However, at Trump’s urging, Texas Republicans have sought to redraw the state’s congressional maps mid-decade to add five more districts that favor GOP candidates. Ohio, under a quirk of state law, is required to redraw its maps, and could turn several more Democratic-held seats into Republican-leaning districts. The White House has looked to states with Republican supermajorities, including Missouri and Indiana, to potentially add more seats.
Democratic governors in deep-blue states, including California, Illinois and New York, have responded by vowing a tit-for-tat redrawing of their own congressional maps to reduce their numbers of Republican-leaning districts.
Beckwith’s town hall was in Lake County — in the heart of Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, represented by Rep. Frank Mrvan, one of only two Democrats in the state’s nine-member U.S. House delegation.
Beckwith was asked a series of questions about whether a mid-decade redistricting in Indiana would violate constitutional norms or Voting Rights Act protections.
Kris Miller, a Lake County voter attending with her daughter, told Beckwith that Democrats make up about 40% of Indiana’s electorate but hold just two of nine House seats.
“We are gerrymandered,” Miller said, arguing that another round of redistricting would further dilute representation for Democratic-leaning areas like Lake County.
Beckwith responded that he was considering the issue from a “national perspective,” pointing to what he characterized as gerrymandered districts in blue states such as California, Illinois and Massachusetts — a state where a Republican, then-Gov. Charlie Baker, signed the current maps into law in 2021.
“Democrats are just mad that we figured out their game plan,” Beckwith said.
“I look at what states like California, Illinois, New York, Delaware, Massachusetts are doing,” he said. “They have been gerrymandering the living daylights out of their states. … I don’t like gerrymandering personally, but if California’s doing it … that’s the new rules of the game. And Indiana should follow suit in order to stay competitive on a national level.”
Beckwith added: “Republican principles are better for everybody. If you would like to have your voices heard on this issue, go to the people that are going to make the choice on whether or not to redistrict — and that is your legislator.”
Beckwith’s remarks drew a range of reactions from the crowd.
Suzy Barnhart said she understands that both parties engage in redistricting. She recalled working on campaigns, including one for a former Republican state House member, and said she’d previously felt that Indiana Democrats had unfairly drawn the state’s legislative maps to lock in their own majority.
Others, however, saw Beckwith’s position differently. Debbie Pennington, a 70-year-old Valparaiso woman, whose star-spangled shirt Beckwith had complimented moments earlier, said after the town hall she was frustrated that Beckwith had accused other states of gerrymandering without naming Texas — the state that had sparked the discussion.
Miller said after the town hall that she found his answers hypocritical, accusing him of actively seeking to silence voters. She was frustrated that when the topic came up, Beckwith chose to highlight other states’ actions instead of offering a plan to eliminate gerrymandering altogether.
“He’s smooth … it’s scary,” she said. “We need more people to be informed. All he wants to do is tell me what to think — that’s what’s infuriating.”
Miller’s college-aged daughter, Emmaline, echoed her mother’s concerns, saying she would rather see the lieutenant governor focus on solutions rather than on assigning blame.
“It’s about doing what’s morally best for Indiana,” she said. “Just because someone else in some other state does something doesn’t mean we should be petty and retaliate.”
Sydney Byerly is a political reporter who grew up in New Albany, Indiana. Before joining The Citizen, Sydney reported news for TheStatehouseFile.com and most recently managed and edited The Corydon Democrat & Clarion News in southern Indiana. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism at Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism (‘Sco Griz!).
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.
