Senate set to vote on redistricting Thursday afternoon

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.-- The third and final vote on the redistricting bill is scheduled to happen tomorrow afternoon in the Indiana State Senate.

On the Senate floor Wednesday, three senate democrats proposed three different amendments to the redistricting bill and they all failed.

ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert reached out to local republican state senators to see where they stand on redistricting ahead of tomorrow’s vote.

-Senator Mike Bohacek (R-Michiana Shores) said he’s voting no on redistricting.

-Senator Blake Doriot (R-Goshen) said he believes fighting for a democrat in congressional district one is the best way to move forward, instead of redrawing the maps mid-cycle.

-ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert spoke with Senator Sue Glick (R-LaGrange) on Tuesday, who said she is opposed to it.

“This is basically just a reworking, if you will, of the maps to try and get political advantage, and there's a number of us that are opposed to that,” said Glick.

ABC57 reached out to Senators Charbonneau, Mishler, Rogers, and Donato to independently verify their stance on redistricting. They either declined or did not respond.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle reports that in committee on Monday, Republican senators Stacey Donato (R-Logansport) and Linnda Rogers (R-Granger) voted to move the bill out of committee, reportedly indicating they were open to changing their votes later.

The State Senate is set to vote on the new districts, which are designed to help republicans claim all nine seats in Congress.

Chad Kinsella, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Science at Ball State University, spoke to ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert on Wednesday about what’s unfolding right now in the Senate, and how it differs from what happened in the House last week.

Kinsella says republicans have a supermajority in the House and Senate, so he says even if they have ‘defectors’ opposing this, republicans could still pass this.

“There's a lot of consternation and questions in the Senate. So I think this is going to be the real test of this is if they can get this passed in the Senate. The house was, you know, kind of a breeze, so to speak. It went through and was pretty easy, but the Senate's a little less political, as senates tend to be, than the House,” said Kinsella.