It is no small thing for lawmakers to say no the president of the United States. It’s even more remarkable for state-level Republicans to withstand the full force of President Donald Trump’s bully pulpit for months on end.
So kudos to members of Indiana’s Senate GOP, who have repeatedly fended off demands from the president and other high-ranking Republican officials that they gerrymander their congressional map to improve the party’s chances of retaining its U.S. House majority. Indiana Republicans’ latest stand took place on Friday, when Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray (R) insisted there are not enough votes to move forward with redistricting.
The announcement brewed up a social media storm over the weekend, led by Trump, who blasted Bray and his fellow Hoosiers who oppose redistricting as “RINO Senators” who “could be depriving Republicans of a Majority in the House.” Hours after the social media rant, online trolls sent police officers to the home of state Sen. Greg Goode, a vocal Republican opponent of the redistricting push, to investigate false claims of a “domestic violence emergency” at his address.
Let’s hope these lawmakers hold firm, despite the feverish intraparty harassment. Republicans already hold an advantage in Indiana’s congressional delegation. Democrats control two of the state’s seven districts, even though more than 38 percent of voters cast ballots for Democratic House candidates in 2024. National party leaders think they can redraw the map in a way that allows them to flip one — or maybe even both — of the Democratic-controlled seats, thereby silencing a significant chunk of the electorate.
Such an undemocratic, win-at-all-costs mindset has infected both parties since Texas Republicans voted to redistrict this summer. Since then, Democrats in California, Maryland and Virginia have taken up the gerrymandering cause, as have Republicans in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio. In each instance, the partisans are using the same deplorable cudgel to engineer themselves out of political defeat: muting the voices of political opponents for the sake of short-term gains.
Any resistance to this downward spiral is worthy of praise. Republicans in Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire, like those in Indiana, have stood up for their principles. So has Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D), who has been pilloried by the left for courageously opposing a power grab by Gov. Wes Moore (D) to obliterate the only remaining Republican congressional district in the state. (Democrats control seven of the eight seats.)
“Nothing happens just because. It happens because people make a choice,” Ferguson said in an interview with NBC News. “At the end of the day, this comes down to more than just lines on a map. Here are core questions about the future of our democracy that are embedded in how elections are set and who represents the people of a jurisdiction.”
That’s a message all lawmakers would benefit from hearing.
The post A principled stand for democracy in Indiana
appeared first on Washington Post.
