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(Photo/Xain Ballenger of TheStatehouseFile.com)

By Marilyn Odendahl

The Indiana Citizen

February 5, 2024

The Indiana General Assembly appears poised to extend the deadline for municipalities and school boards to redraw their election districts, pushing the due date a second time and possibly upending a lawsuit filed against the city of Anderson for failing to redistrict in decades.

Authored by Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, Senate Bill 135 would reset the deadline to June 30, 2025, for local governmental units to either redistrict or recertify that the current districts are in compliance based on results of the 2020 decennial census.  Failure to meet the new deadline will result in members of the local body – whether a school board, city or town council – not being paid any salary or fees until they comply.

Under state law, county and municipal governments and school boards have to redistrict one or two years after each federal census of the population. Gaskill said many local units in Indiana have not redistricted and, under current state law, they would not be able to redraw their districts until 2030 when the next census of the U.S. population is taken.

“Therefore, this bill would create a one-time opportunity for local units of government to come into compliance with the law,” Gaskill said.

However, SB 135 comes as the city of Anderson is battling a lawsuit filed after its city council voted not to redistrict after the 2020 U.S. Census data was released. In June 2023, Common Cause Indiana, the Anderson-Madison County NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Indiana and two residents of Anderson filed a complaint in federal court asserting the city council violated state law and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment by not redrawing the district lines. The plaintiffs claim six districts “remain significantly malapportioned,” leaving voters in the overpopulated districts with less voting strength than the voters in the three underpopulated districts.

The city’s motion to dismiss was denied in October. Since then, according to the docket, the opposing sides have not been able to reach a settlement and the plaintiffs have filed a motion for summary judgment.

When SB 135 was given a hearing before the Senate Elections Committee, Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, asked Gaskill, whose district includes the city of Anderson, whether the measure would impact the lawsuit.

Gaskill replied, “I think us passing this could be helpful, because it will give the Anderson City Council an opportunity to come in, outside of the court proceeding, and attempt to make a resolution to this.”

Hunley seemed to agree. “So I think that whatever we can do to help them speed up their process and make it right for the voters, it’s definitely beneficial,” she said.

Democrats tried to amend SB 135 when it reached the Senate floor last week. Although their amendments were voted down, members of the minority party joined the Republicans in unanimously passing the bill on a 49-to-0 vote.

Now in the Indiana House, SB 135 is being sponsored by Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, chair of the House Elections and Apportionment Committee.

Many towns and school boards out of compliance

This is the second time the legislature has extended the deadline for redistricting. In 2022, the lawmakers passed House Bill 1285, which gave local units until Dec. 30, 2022, to fulfill their obligation.

Before the Senate Elections Committee, Kristina Byers of the Indiana Local Government Redistricting Project presented the findings of the nonprofit’s January 2024 report. By the end of 2022, Byers and her colleagues discovered, 23 counties, 12 school corporations, two second-class cities, four third-class cities and as many as 90 cities and towns with populations of less than 10,000 had not redistricted.

Both Byers and Bradley King, the Republican co-director of the Indiana Election Division, told the committee that municipalities and school corporations have a variety of reasons for not redistricting. The barriers to redistricting, which include political disputes, not wanting to redistrict, and “extensive confusion” over which local governments had to redistrict, were compounded by the six-month delay in the release of the 2020 census data because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, was skeptical that the late release of the census numbers kept Indiana communities from redistricting.

“I think the real crux of this issue is why haven’t these folks redistricted? Did they not know about it? Did they not have the funds to do it?” Ford asked King. “I think that’s something that we really need to explore and understand.”

Byers also noted the first deadline extension was not very helpful. Many school boards could not redistrict in 2022, since that was an election year for them. Moreover, most municipalities already had until the end of 2022 to redraw their districts, so the extension did not matter.

“We found redistricting is not, and should not be, onerous or expensive and it’s usually at the local level not even divisive,” Byers said. “We just need to make sure that local governments have more information and resources and people to show them how to use the resources they have.”

Wanting to prevent more litigation

The prospect of local governments, like the city of Anderson, facing litigation for not redistricting was mentioned repeatedly as SB 135 bill worked it way through the Senate.

King of the Indiana Election Division brought up the issue during his testimony before the Senate Elections Committee.

“(Districts) really have no credible defense if an attorney brings a suit to say, ‘You’re violating the one-person-one-vote rights of people within this local government, and I’d like attorneys’ fees and the sum of X dollars,’” King told the legislators. “What Senate Bill 135 does is open up a window this year so that the local governments involved can … bring themselves into compliance with the constitutional one-person-one-vote requirement.”

The possibility of litigation was mentioned again when Ford offered an amendment on the Senate floor that would require local governments to give their shapefiles, which are used to draw the new districts, to the Election Division. This, he said, would create a repository of maps and would identify which municipalities and school corporations did not redistrict.

While he acknowledged Ford’s idea was good, Gaskill opposed the amendment. He said some communities might not be able to access the geographic information system software (GIS) needed to make the shapefiles, so they would have difficulty complying with the requirement.

“Also,” Gaskill said, “I think that it could possibly contribute to the filing of lawsuits as well.”

Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, rose to offer a rebuttal, saying he was confused by Gaskill’s comment that the amendment could lead to more lawsuits.

“You want to cut down on the kind of stuff that we’re dealing with around the state where they won’t redraw districts, having it in one central place where everybody has to report all the information would actually help the bill,” Taylor said. “I really don’t understand why we wouldn’t want people to be able to go to one place to find out where the council boundaries are.”

The amendment was defeated on a voice vote.

Gaskill also recommended amending the bill to adjust the deadlines for local governmental units that have races on the ballot this year. For the 2024 races, the election districts would not have to be redrawn until after Jan. 1, 2025.

The amendment prevailed on a voice vote.

Hunley put forth an amendment that called for an interim study committee to examine why redistricting is not being done and what funding or technical assistance could be offered to help local authorities draw their election districts. That would enable the legislators to hear from the local officials themselves, she said.

“So what this study committee would do is it would give an opportunity to get folks around the table to actually talk about what are those barriers that are in place to redistricting right now,” Hunley said. “What is preventing folks from being able to, say, upload their data to one statewide repository, and how can we support them?”

The report from the Indiana Local Government Redistricting Project also recommended an interim study committee look at the problems local officials have in redistricting.

Hunley’s amendment failed on a party line vote of 40 to 9.

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.