Ind. Senate advances bill, state to be redistricted

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana lawmakers would have guidelines for redrawing state political district maps next year if a bill that cleared an Indiana Senate committee Monday becomes law.

The Senate Elections Committee voted 6-2 Monday to advance the bill, which would stress the preservation of traditional neighborhoods and keep so-called communities of interest together. Bill supporters said the guidelines could prevent gerrymandered legislative districts created for partisan reasons.

Others said the bill doesn’t go far enough because it would not explicitly prohibit political data from being used when creating state Senate and House legislative districts.

The state constitution requires Indiana lawmakers to vote on new legislative maps after the U.S. census every 10 years. That’s expected to make the 2010 legislative campaigns more intense – especially in the narrowly divided House – because the parties in power will draw new maps in 2011 following the 2010 census.

Redrawing maps is often a partisan process designed to protect incumbents or carve out new territory based in part on voter registrations or voting patterns.

Bill sponsor Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, said her proposal would provide simple criteria for those making the maps. The bill calls for legislative districts to be drawn to preserve local communities of interest based on cultural, ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic similarities. The guidelines also say districts should be compact, have simple shapes and respect county boundary lines when possible.

“This is an attempt to set some reasonable, rational guidelines,” Lawson said.

But the bill also would allow districts to deviate from the standards when appropriate. Lawson said that exemption was needed because lawmakers must deal with federal guidelines and other factors could come up.

Others said that could defeat the intent of the proposal and lead to maps based on politics.

“It’s so vague that it basically doesn’t exclude what I think is the big problem people perceive about redistricting – that it’s all driven by politics,” said Sen. Tim Lanane, D-Anderson.

June Lyle, state director for AARP Indiana, said political districts that are spread over large geographic areas can make voters feel detached from their representatives. Districts drawn along political lines can lead to less moderate candidates, she said, and “safe seats” where representatives are not considered as responsive to voters as those in competitive districts.

Julia Vaughn of the watchdog group Common Cause Indiana noted that other states use independent commissions to set political boundaries. That’s been proposed in Indiana, but some say it would take several years to implement a new system. Vaughn said Lawson’s bill could be a good step forward in the meantime.

“Criteria is something that is particularly doable this year to impact the process in 2011,” Vaughn said.

All six Republicans on the Senate committee voted for the bill, while two Democrats voted against it. The legislation now moves to the full GOP-controlled Senate for consideration. It’s unclear whether the bill will gain traction in the Democrat-led House.