Mid-cycle redistricting failed in Indiana, but here's where there's still a push in the U.S.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana is done with mid-cycle redistricting for now, but the battle for control of Congress continues on the national stage.

On Thursday, the Indiana Senate defeated the proposed maps 31 to 19.

Elizabeth Bennion, Ph.D., is a Political Science professor at IU South Bend. She says on Thursday, many senators showcased a backlash against threats and pressure--with many members of the caucus sticking together.

“So this really was notable, and what these senators are saying is that they are more concerned about people in Indiana and fairness and representation, and what it might look like that it would seem to be cheating, and that their constituents, across party lines, were saying this wasn't what they wanted them to focus on. So we did see the first bipartisan push against this extreme partisan pressure to essentially rig the maps to get more seats for one party or another,” said Bennion.

Many other states are still considering new maps, and some have even adopted them already.

There is current litigation in some states regarding redistricting.

In California, new congressional maps favoring Democrats are being considered by federal judges to see if district boundaries, approved by voters, can be used in midterm elections.

Bennion says historically, the president’s party loses 26 seats in the House on average. Since World War II, if the president is below 50 percent approval, which Bennion says President Donald Trump is right now, it’s 37 seats.

She says that’s what led to this mid-cycle redistricting push.

“So we see that in Texas, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina, the GOP is slated to pick up about nine seats if nothing changes with litigation and referenda. We also see, however, in California, since voters decided to go ahead and approve maps that would give democrats an additional five seats, that there might be a four-seat advantage for the Republicans, given all of this drama and this all-out arms race and redistricting, that's actually not probably going to change the results of the election,” said Bennion.

This weekend, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said of unconstrained gerrymandering: “I think that it’s going to lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence in our country.”

“There's this concern, this fear, this desire, that the winner should take all and that if you can control the legislature, you should control the maps. The problem with that is that you are talking about issues of fundamental fairness and representation and also voter trust, and once voters see maps in which a particular community, such as one city, is divided up into multiple different districts and unable to elect a representative who represents their particular interests, whether this is an urban community or a rural community where they feel they're totally unrepresented, what we see is people who may lose faith in democracy,” said Bennion. “They're saying, ‘Wait, we are seeing that 40% of our state votes for a particular political party, but we have zero seats in Congress. That's not a voice. It's not a real vote. It's not working for us.’ That could lead to what Paul is concerned about, which is people going to the streets, or, worse yet, choosing political violence because they don't feel that they're represented through the system that exists.”

Bennion says the US Supreme Court has made it clear that it will not do anything about partisan gerrymandering, which means either Congress or states need to do something about it.

“And maybe best case scenario, folks on the left and the right, Democrats and Republicans, when they see these maps and they see this all out war, and they realize that this will keep happening over and over again, and whoever controls the state houses will completely try to disenfranchise members of the other party, that perhaps, instead of turning to violence as the answer, people would turn to reform,” said Bennion.

Bennion says the lesser-represented parties within some states who are not happy with current redistricting efforts might seriously look at changing laws to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.

“I think what many folks who would like to see redistricting reform hope will happen is that voters, both Republicans in California and democrats in states where they feel unrepresented, will join together and outlaw partisan gerrymandering,” said Bennion.