By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
October 7, 2024
The city of Anderson Common Council is now under a court order to do what it has not done for decades – redraw its council district maps.
In a Sept. 30 order, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana found the city council districts are “unconstitutionally malapportioned” in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and ordered the city council and the co-defendant, the Madison County Board of Elections, to correct the “ongoing violation,” but did not set a deadline for completing the redistricting.
Also, the plaintiffs – Common Cause Indiana, the League of Women Voters Indiana and the Anderson-Madison County branch of the NAACP – had asked the court to issue an injunction to prevent the Board of Elections from continuing to hold elections under the malapportioned map. The court denied the injunction relief, saying it wanted to avoid potentially confusing voters or interfering with the voting process since the November election is just weeks away.
Even so, the plaintiffs in the case applauded the court’s ruling.
“Redistricting is crucial to guaranteeing that our communities get the essential services and support they need from our government,” Linda Hanson, president of the League of Women Voters of Indiana, said. “When elected officials fail to redistrict properly, residents are stripped of equal representation. This decision is a welcome step forward to restore voters’ constitutional rights to fair representation on their city council.”
Anderson council president, Lance Stephenson, did not respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs filed their complaint in Common Cause Indiana, et al. v. City of Anderson Common Council, 1:23-cv-1022, in June 2023, asserting the city had failed to redistrict after the 2020 U.S. Census, as required by state statute. In fact, plaintiffs alleged the council had not redrawn its six districts since 1982, even as the population in Anderson was shifting as shown in the 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 decennial census counts.
As a result, the plaintiffs said the council’s districts had a total population deviation of 45.48%. The court’s September order noted a population deviation greater than 10% creates the grounds for a case alleging constitutional violation.
“Under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, seats in local legislative bodies must be ‘apportioned on a population basis.’ This is known as the ‘one-person, one-vote’ principle: states and their political subdivisions must designed legislative districts with equal populations,” Judge James Sweeney wrote, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Evenwel v. Abbott and 1968 ruling in Avery v. Midland Cnty.
Sweeney also pointed out that a “large total population deviation,” where one district has a significantly larger population than another district, “suggests a constitutional violation because a person’s vote in a larger district has less voting power than a person’s vote in a relatively smaller district.”
A redistricting demography and mapping specialist determined the “ideal population” for each of the six districts was 9,131. However, the decades-old map the council had been using had population distribution swings from a high of 11,643 in District 3 to the low of 7,490 in District 4.
The defendants initially tried to get the case dismissed. They argued the plaintiffs did not show that the failure to redistrict was discriminatory against minority voters in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Pointing out the complaint did not include any claim for a violation of the Voting Rights Act, the plaintiffs accused the city council and election board of erecting a “straw man” argument. After the federal court denied the motion to dismiss, Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, the lead plaintiff in the case, urged the council leadership to work with the plaintiffs to “craft a fair and politically-neutral new map.”
In January 2024, the plaintiffs filed their motion asking the court to declare that Anderson’s districts were unconstitutionally malapportioned. The defendants responded four months later by filing a motion to stay the proceedings. They argued there was nothing to litigate because the Indiana General Assembly had passed House Enrolled Act 135, which extended the deadline for municipalities and school boards to redistrict to June 2025.
Although the motion to stay was denied days after it was filed, the federal court did not issue any ruling on the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment. Moreover, the court did not set any deadline for redrawing the council district map or appoint a special master to draw new maps.
In the Sept. 30 order, the federal court noted the defendants never filed a response to the plaintiff’s partial summary judgment motion.
“Instead, to defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment, there must be enough evidence for a ‘reasonable jury’ to find for the nonmoving party,” Sweeney wrote. “Here, in failing to respond, Defendants have not brought forth any evidence whatsoever. As such, no reasonable factfinder could find for Defendants.”
During the five months between the denial of the motion to stay and the order granting partial summary judgment, the Anderson Common Council drew and approved a new district map, but never submitted it to the federal court.
District 4 councilor Ollie Dixon said he and other council members redrew his district by walking through the neighborhoods and knocking on doors. Dixon disputed the population numbers for his district, contending the U.S. Census undercounted the people in District 4.
The plaintiffs did an analysis of the revised map and found while the total population deviation had been lowered to 34%, the redrawn districts still exceeded the constitutionally accepted standards of 10%.
Vaughn said the council’s “blatant disregard” had denied the residents of Anderson the right to equal representation.
“This obvious effort to protect incumbents is ridiculous and undemocratic,” Vaughn said. “Updating districts to reflect new census population counts empowers the people to effectively advocate and ensures equal representation of communities. We are thrilled that the court ruled in our favor and finally extended that essential right to the people of Anderson.”
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.
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.