Indiana’s Senate debates HB 1032, a mid-decade redistricting bill, with Senator Young warning it could cost Republicans the House by one vote while critics like Senators Spencer, Ford, and Cudorio argue it fractures communities—splitting Gary’s lakefront, merging rural Clay County with Indianapolis suburbs—and violates democratic principles, comparing gerrymandering to segregation. Senator Gaskell defends the bill, drawn by non-resident "map drawer" Adam Kincaid, as a counter to Democratic tactics, but opponents cite legal risks and economic priorities like healthcare costs. The 31-19 vote rejects HB 1032, preserving Indiana’s 2025 census-based map amid broader partisan battles over representation, while the Senate advances the NDAA—ignoring NTSB Chair Jennifer Homindy’s warnings about Reagan National Airport’s military flight expansion following a deadly mid-air collision. [Automatically generated summary]
The Indiana State Senate rejected by a vote of 31 to 19 a measure that would redraw the state's congressional map to provide an advantage to Republicans.
Despite pressure from President Trump to proceed with the redistricting effort, Indiana became the first Republican-controlled state to reject the proposal.
21 Republicans joined with 10 Democrats in voting down the proposed map.
Before the vote, senators held a nearly three-hour discussion on the measure.
All right.
Do we have a file with fileists?
All right.
All right.
Point of personal privilege.
Senator Young, you're recognized.
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
You guys can all applaud because I think this is the last time I'm ever going to talk on this subject.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate the kind regards there.
Well, you may have noticed on Channel 13, or NBC, they used to run this little public service announcement, the more you know.
And the more you know, I think benefits people, the more knowledge and information they have to make good decisions.
So, in my effort to make you know more, I just want to give you points 41 and 42.
Let me start by saying this: that we are not the only legislative body, whether it's a state, a local, or even congressional, that faces tough issues.
Everybody does it all the time.
But once in a generation, or maybe once in a lifetime, we face a decision so controversial that will make a difference in the future of our country.
And today, we have the honor to resolve that issue that faces what our future may be in the United States of America.
Presidents aren't immune for this type of thing either.
And they get a lot of heat.
But at the end, they do what is right for their country.
Abraham Lincoln, on his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, that decision to do that was incredibly controversial in the North.
In the North, not just in the South.
While it energized abolitionists, many white Northerns feared an influx of freed people, and some Union soldiers and war Democrats abandoned the cause over that issue.
Lincoln faced immense political pressure and criticism, but believed it was important and necessary as a war measure to undermine the Confederacy and put this nation on a pace to abolish slavery, which ultimately redefined the ward's moral purpose.
And he saved the Union.
He also gave his life.
Harry Truman.
Courage is not restricted to one party, one Republican or Democrat.
Courage is not even restricted to male or female, or young or old.
And Harry Truman demonstrated courage when he desegregated the armed forces in 1948.
President Truman faced a political risky decision in 1948 when he issued Executive Order 9981 abolishing racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces.
This move was met with significant resistance from Southern Democrats who threatened to walk out on the Democrat convention and from their own party, potentially costing Truman the election.
Many in the military and general public held bigoted views and swore they would never serve alongside our black American heroes.
Despite the political and social backlash, Truman prioritized civil rights and equality, a decision now seen as a crucial step in the broader civil rights movement and a moral imperative for this nation to do the right thing at the right time for our country.
Our founding fathers, according to John F. Kennedy in his book, Profiles and Courage, said this about the Senate.
And I thought this might be appropriate because we are the Senate.
And he said, the founding fathers could not have envisioned service in the Senate as providing an opportunity for political courage, whereby men went in danger or end their careers by resisting the will of the constituents.
He never thought it would be possible for us to have these questions.
But he said, for the very concept of the Senate, in contrast to the House, was a body which would not be subject to constituent pressures.
And yet, we are.
He thought we should have courage to do what's right, a president who gave his life for his country.
But there are also people with courage that served in the Indiana General Assembly.
I would never put myself in one of those positions because the loss of what some of these people felt or found out to happen to them is far more things that could ever happen to me.
It could, but they had the courage to do it.
In 1992 and 1994, I ran our House campaign races, and we went from 42 members up to 56.
I can tell you, nobody on your side in the House was endeared with me.
And every time I would go to the mic thereafter, I would get booed and hissed.
And one time I brought in the football team for Ben Davis for winning the state championship.
And they booed and hissed me.
And I remember the coach turned to me and says, I don't think they like you.
I said, I know.
I do my job.
And so, but that's not even courage.
What was courage was this.
In order to get control of the House of Representatives, I had to have a different strategy.
And we went after the seven weakest Democrats that we knew of, who we thought we could beat.
And those members that won, their names should live for eternity.
John Kimmel, David Lohr, Cleo Duncan, Sally Lambert, who beat the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Patfield, Irene Huffley, and Marty Wilmex.
Seven individuals with more courage than I think I could have ever mustered.
We had some important bills as we got control of the House again.
Things like this: common wage.
The unions hated my guts.
I was the author of that bill.
And one day, when thousands of big, burly union guys exercising that freedom of speech and assembly came to the state house, they had a baseball card that was produced by Ball State.
You know whose picture was on that Ball State baseball card?
It was mine.
You know who these people were looking for?
It was me.
Did that deter me to do what was right for my state?
No, it didn't.
I did try to sneak out of the building incognito, but I didn't give up the cause that I had because it was more important.
And that wasn't the only big bill we had.
We had tort reform.
We had a bill that, I was the chairman of the labor committee, no more forced union dues to the ISTA.
And we also sped up the death penalty.
And there were six other bills that was in our package.
But these bills, these were the most controversial, these four.
And the Nita was there.
And I don't know if Jim got in there.
Jim was there, Senator Buck.
And you know what?
We had 56 members, but we never had the same 51 members.
They were always different.
But we always got 51 to do the right thing for our state and for our future.
Because six people, seven people with courage decided it was more important for them personally to do the right thing than to be here.
And I remember going to him and asking him this, telling him this.
I said, I want you to know, you're from Democrat districts.
These issues are not going to be favorable to you.
That they go against everything that your district represents.
And the constituents were telling them no.
These seven individuals gave their votes and their seats to do the right thing for our state and our future.
John Kimmel and Dave Lohr came from Terre Haute.
They did their job admirably and honorably.
They knew, they knew that they would never be back and told me so.
They both lost, but our state still won, and those laws we passed still exist.
Sally Lambert, who beat the Speaker, she knew it was over for her, but she thought more of her state and doing the right thing than being in that office.
And she lost.
But what she did that day still lives.
John Padfield won, along with Cleo Duncan.
The only two of those people that didn't lose their seats.
And two from Indianapolis, downtown Indianapolis, Irene Hefley and Marty Womacks.
They knew what the danger was if they did this.
And they weighed, do I want to be a legislator or do I want to do the right thing?
You know what they chose?
To do the right thing.
And they may have been hurt when they lost, but their hearts weren't sad because they had courage to do what was right.
And so I just want to tell you this, and I'm not, I can't sing, and I'm not going to do so now.
I'm not a person that writes good poems, but I did talk to you about this one issue already.
I don't want to wake up the morning after the election in November and find out we lost the House of Representatives by one vote.
If I knew that I did that, I would feel horrible.
The Speaker said, and we all know this, that our technology and the ability to draw districts are so good, we can make any district impenetrable if we choose to do it.
The speaker said, based on what we have today, their political people tell them it's likely on election day that they will either be down one seat in the minority or up one seat.
If Indiana comes along, they would be up one seat or up three seats.
I don't know.
I can't see the future.
I'm not that great.
Maybe his assessment's wrong, but I do know the technology exists because I drew the maps in 2011 with a couple other of my friends.
I know how good they are.
I know what we can do.
I know how strong we could make a district.
Only a handful of districts throughout the United States will determine who controls Congress.
And we may or may not do our part today to keep our nation in the hands of Republicans and to do the right things for our state.
And I only say that because of this.
Whether we choose to play in the game or we choose to play not in the game will determine the history and future of our state.
Whether we do it or not, Virginia just elected a Democrat governor, and they've already taken the first step of three to eliminate five of our members.
Five.
Five of our guys will be gone.
Utah, a federal judge, took away one from the Republicans and gave him to the Democrat.
Well, there's six.
I don't know how many it's going to be decided.
I have no idea.
I know this election is going to be very close.
And so since I talked to you about the morning after, I'm going to read you just two stanzas and then I'm done.
The morning after.
There's got to be a morning after.
If we can hold on through this fight, we have a chance to find the sunshine.
Let's keep on looking for what is right.
Oh, can't you see the morning after?
It's waiting right outside the storm.
Why don't we cross the political divide together and find our country safe and unharmed?
It's not too late, and we're still striving.
Let's find a way to serve our nation.
It's not too late, not why we're still serving.
Let's put our hands together to save our nation.
May God bless this body, our people, this state, and the greatest country in the world.
Hey, Senator.
Point of personal privilege, Senator Glick.
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
Just a short, your historical footnote.
Today is Statehood Day.
209 years ago, as of this date, Indiana joined the Union, and they didn't have near as much trouble drawing the maps.
Thank you.
All right, thanks, Senator.
We will now move to the introduction of bills on the file list.
File list number five, clerk will read.
Senator File List number five, SB 124, 125, 126, 127, 122, 119, 130, 133.
All right, we'll now move to bills on eligible for second reading.
The clerk will read the roll.
Senate Bill 13, Senator Dorio.
Senator Dorio reluctantly passes.
Continue the roll.
Senate Bill 56, Senator Lysing.
Senator Lysing passes.
All right, we will now move to bills eligible for third reading.
Senator Gaskell, as I prepare to ask you these questions, if there's a question that you've already answered somewhere else, please just tell me that and when you answered it, and we'll move on.
Senator Gaskell, a few questions in regards to the maps that we see here in front of us.
Is this map being installed because other states did mid-decade redistricting like Texas or California?
The only factor in these maps were political in nature.
unidentified
Thank you.
What have you done to make sure that these maps comply with the Indiana Constitution and relevant case law regarding redistricting voting rights and equal protection as well as the separation of powers, which are all in our Indiana Constitution?
Did you consider any of those things when actually supporting or sponsoring this map?
I believe that they are compliant with all state and federal laws with the Constitution of the state of Indiana and the Constitution of the United States of America.
unidentified
Okay.
Two more questions.
I'll be done.
Thank you for your time.
If the sponsor, if you were, were you aware of any population changes between now, between 2020 and now?
And if so, which demographic group has grown and which ones have gone down from a demographic standpoint?
Giving honor to God and to all who are in this chamber today, I rise today on behalf of District 3, which encompasses Gary, Hobart, Merrillville, Lake Station, and New Chicago.
But I also rise with an understanding larger than any one region, because what happens at the top of our state touches the heart of our state, and what touches the heart of Indiana eventually reaches every corner of it.
The people I serve have been unmistakably clear they do not want the map, not because of politics, not because of personalities, but because they understand what every Hoosier understands, that representation is not simply about geography, it's about identity.
A map that stretches a lakefront community into regions with entirely different rhythms of life does not strengthen representation.
It scatters it.
And when one community's voice is scattered, every Hoosier's voice becomes a little harder to hear.
So from Gary to Valparaiso, from Indianapolis to Crawfordsville, from our small towns to our urban centers, Hoosiers deserve districts drawn with clarity, consistency, and common sense.
See, they deserve a map that reflects who they are, not one that pulls them into places they do not live, do not work, and cannot be heard.
Now, in District 3, that's my district, it's rebuilding.
We're rising.
We are reclaiming our footing and our future.
And we know deeply and spiritually that our community's voice is a part of its life's blood.
Now, if you thin that out, if you stretch it too far, you dim the light that keeps that community moving forward.
And please make no mistake: when a map weakens the voice of one region, it sets a precedent that endangers the voice of every region.
So, today, it's not about drawing lines, it's about drawing conclusions.
And the conclusion from my district and from many others across Indiana is simple: this map does not reflect the people it claims to serve.
And respectfully, respectfully, I cannot support it.
See, Hoosiers deserve a map that's drawn in the light of who we truly are, not in the shadow of what divides us.
And the people of District 3 and far, far beyond it, are asking us to get it right.
And with that, I thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Ford.
Senator Ford to speak on the bill.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
I'm honored to stand before you today, representing the hardworking Hoosiers of District 29.
And I do want to say thank you to all the folks who have trusted me to be your voice in this body and who have reached out during this time to say no to this map.
I also want to thank all the Hoosiers who came and participated in this process.
And I do want to thank the chairman for having a great hearing.
But this has been months of passion and civic engagement to those Hoosiers.
And there are a few times in my time here that I can recall as many emails and phone calls or instances of people stopping me in the public just to talk about an issue.
This is how it should be.
A government of, for, and by the people should be just that.
And it works best when we listen to the folks who have elected us to serve.
This map does not do that.
Overwhelmingly, Hoosiers reaching out have said one thing, and that is that they do not and I do not want to live in a country where our republic is as fickle as this legislation asks it to be.
We have heard over and over again that if other states are doing it, if other states are exploiting the rules, then we should too.
That is not what I believe in.
I believe in a process that is rooted in fairness and a reverence of our values and our rules.
I also believe in the rural, urban, Democrat, and Republican Hoosiers, not paid actors, who took off work, found last-minute childcare, or used their day off to stand in line for hours to testify on this bill and committee this week.
The majority of those using their voice to say no, exercising their First Amendment constitutional right.
I believe in the thousands of calls, emails, and comments I have heard from Hoosiers over the last four months overwhelmingly saying, please do not do this.
And like so many of you, I believe in the power and importance of merit, and I trust the people of our state.
And I know in my heart that those two things should be the driving determinant in who wins an election.
This bill creates a different, dire outlook for our state.
Instead of merit, we are saying that we are prioritizing a letter next to a name on a ballot with predetermined election results predicated on party affiliation, creating a surgical map with elected officials choosing their constituents and not the other way around.
And we should demand more for Hoosiers who so desperately need strong representation in Washington that accurately reflects their communities, which is a centuries-old tradition of drawing our maps every 10 years, regardless of shifting political winds, helping us to achieve that.
We have a real opportunity to be a national leader, and we can rise above the political noise and say no to this map.
We keep hearing Congress has failed to act, but we don't need Congress to act.
We can do it the Hoosier way.
We can do it with common sense, and we can do it with fairness.
If we let this map pass, however, that decision will haunt this body and this state for generations to come.
But out of respect and deep admiration for our democracy, our fair and free elections, and this institution, I will be voting no on this bill.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator.
Further discussion?
Senator Kedora.
Senator Cudorio to speak.
Good afternoon, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
I'm honored to be with you today.
Today, we are not being asked to debate a budget or a tax policy or the expansion of affordable solutions for Hoojiers across the state of Indiana.
Rather, we are being asked to consider a bill that no one in Indiana asked for, a mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts that exists for one purpose and one purpose only, to predetermine political outcomes.
House Bill 1032 was not shaped by the voices of Hoojers who gathered at public hearings or round tables to convey to legislators their desire to keep their communities united and cohesive.
The map was not informed by the needs and the desires of Hoojers across the state who are being crushed under the weight of an economy that is not serving their needs.
Instead, the maps were drawn behind closed doors outside of Indiana by non-Hoojers.
The flaws in the process are not small or technical.
The proposed map breaks precincts, divides cohesive neighborhoods, and stretches districts across counties and time zones.
It does not bring unity, whether economic, interest, or even historical shared interest between communities from the far north of Indiana to the far south, from the east to the west.
And what is more troubling to me about this map, about this bill, is that it reroutes the judicial review process.
Let me say this one more time.
This bill reroutes the judicial process to avoid Hoojers from challenging the maps in the court.
So we're taking their legal right to air their grievances through the judicial system about the injustice that this map will do to their communities.
That alone, my friends, my colleagues, on its own, should be sufficient for us to reject this bill.
James Madison reminded us that the people are the only legitimate fountain of power.
If that is true, then a process that sidelines the power of the citizens is not only flawed, but it is fundamentally inconsistent with the spirit of a representative democracy.
Now, some may say, but Senator, they've done it in other states.
They gerrymandered too.
Why shouldn't we gerrymander?
Colleagues, the fact that something is legal doesn't make it right.
Let me say it one more time.
The fact that something is legal does not make it right.
Gerrymandering by any party never strengthens democracy.
It has only weakened the power of the people.
And history teaches us that many practices were once legal and accepted and were the norm, but later were morally rejected by a nation.
The mistreatment of an entire community or communities across Indiana was done with this map under the cover of legality.
Legality alone cannot be our compass to sideline, suppress the will of the people.
President John F. Kennedy warned us: the rights of every person are diminished if the rights of person or the rights of one person diminished when the rights of another person are threatened.
If we knowingly draw districts that strip representation from entire communities, urban, suburban, black, brown, immigrants, working class, farmers, we diminish the rights of every Hooji because our lives are intertwined and what impacts one person in our state impacts everybody else.
And we are debating this at a time when families across the state of Indiana, as we speak, are asking us for real solutions because they are struggling.
They asked us to lower property taxes, electric bills, cost of child care, cost of housing, cost of health care, eliminate the more than $2.2 billion or deal with it or address it or reduce the burden of the $2.2 billion worth of medical debt in collections.
Help soybean farmers across Indiana who are crushed under the weights of the tariffs.
Help beef producers who can't sell their beef because your tax dollars, Hooji tax dollars, subsidized another nation to sell us their beef.
We are here to address the affordability crisis, not a map crisis.
Competition is healthy, my friends.
I firmly believe in fair competition.
I always have said it before, and I will say it again, regardless of political parties, Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Green Party, I've always believed, always believed, that any political party on earth that cannot run and win based on the merits of its ideas is unworthy of governing.
Any political party, any political party.
And if any political party thinks that their policies are good, run on those ideas and let the public judge.
For all of these reasons, because the process was flawed, because the maps are punitive rather than representative, because rerouting judicial review or oversight undermines public trust, and because Hoogers didn't ask us to come here to debate this bill, I will be voting no today, a very strong no.
And I ask my colleagues, I ask you, and I appeal to you.
I firmly believe that we are stronger as Hoojers before we identify as Republicans or Democrats.
We are strongers as one community when we place Hoojers' interests first.
I appreciate you for listening, and I hope you can join me in defeating this legislation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Taylor.
Senator Taylor is recognized to speak on the bill.
Thank you, Minister, President, members of the Senate.
My discussion is about what we would face if these maps were to be implemented.
And I want to start first with how important it is to understand when it's time to redistrict.
The reason why I bring that up is because it should not be foreign to those of us in this body.
In 2020, we had a pandemic of no where no one lived the quality of life that we live today.
And because of that, our census was delayed.
So us here, members of this body, changed our Indiana code to fit that scenario.
That is Indiana Code 3-5-10-7.1.
And we said after January 21-25 and before November 1, 2025, redistrict elections, districts for the office on the ballot should be completed by November of 2025.
You see, this is not foreign to us.
And that is why we did what we could do to make sure the people knew who they were voting for and we had a proper census.
We also had the opportunity, if we wanted to, to change the fact that we already have in Indiana Code a restriction for when county executives can draw their maps.
It's clearly states only during the first year after a federal decennial census.
When school corporations can actually change their maps in districts only after a decennial census.
For municipalities, we have in our code when they can draw their districts.
We had the opportunity to say the same thing about us when it comes to our congressional districts.
And as of today, we have not made that decision.
But it's not foreign to us.
I want to talk about the case that brought around, brought this issue to the forefront.
The Russia case.
And I want to challenge us to be open-minded when we listen to the rhetoric that's been provided to us, like the Supreme Court said, or the Supreme Court gave us the ability.
Instead of doing that, I just want to quote one of the justices who wrote the majority opinion, Justice Roberts.
And I'm not quoting him out of context.
I'm quoting right from the case.
And if you hear when I say this quote, Justice Roberts saying, states go redistrict, please inform me.
He said, we conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.
Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.
If you heard Justice Roberts say, please, mid-cycle redistrict, please raise your hand.
Last but not least, I've had the pleasure of representing Marion County since 2008, over 17 years.
I've been through the death of my mother.
I've been through the death of members of this body.
I've been through leadership and being ousted from leadership.
And all that time that I spent in this body, I have always put first representing my Marion County legislators.
It's hard.
It's still hard for me today.
But through my prayer and my diligence as a member of this body, I come to you today to say what you have been saying to me ever since I came in this body.
Marion County is different.
Some of you were around.
Senator, certain senators were around.
I won't call any names.
It might tell you how old we are.
You took away the right for us to have at-large members on my city county council without doing it to your own council.
And in those statements, you said Marion County was different.
You took away the right for my citizens to vote for judges without taking away the same right for your counties.
And you said Marion County was different.
You were right.
This map says the total opposite.
You see, I don't know what a congressperson would do if they had a piece of legislation that had to do with county government as a congressperson if you lived in Switzerland County.
Marion County.
Because see, we're not like you.
We don't have a county council.
We don't have county commissioners.
We don't have elections for judges.
What would your congressperson do if they were looking at a bill that affected those things?
How would they vote?
They would have to leave somebody out.
Finally, don't leave anybody out.
Don't leave it to this map that could leave your community out.
What if that person lives in Marion County?
I ask that we defeat this measure and move on with the business of the state of Indiana.
Thank you, Senator.
Is there further discussion?
Mr. Chair, I've asked to be okay.
Senator Walker, I'll get to you.
Senator Poole.
Thank you, Mr. President, my distinguished colleagues.
To begin with, I'm going to speak directly to what I know best, and that's Northwest Indiana.
Those from the region know that we experience Indiana through a unique perspective.
There's more than corn in Indiana.
It's the Indiana Dunes, our only national park in this part of the country.
It's the steel mills, the backbone of American industry.
It's the home to countless families whose parents, whose grandparents, whose great-grandparents traveled from countries all over the world to build their lives with the promise of the American dream.
Families who have built the economic engine that is Northwest Indiana.
The exquisite geography, the culture, the industry, the unique identity.
We're in our own time zone.
We watch channels 2, 5, 7, 9, and 32 for our news.
We cheer on the Bears, the Blackhawks, the Bulls, the Cubs, the Sox, whichever way you sway.
Our kids play in the same athletic conferences.
They attend the same churches.
And so many of our constituents across the political spectrum punch the same time clock depending on us to give them a better life and a strong voice.
These shared experiences shape who we are, and they shape what we need.
But the region tends to carry a chip on its shoulder because our constituents sometimes feel like they're the forgotten.
That's starting to change.
We've seen great investment from the state over the last couple of sessions.
But that brings me to why this bill troubles me.
Under the proposed map, District 1 would include Lake County all the way down to Wabash County.
And while today, today's Senate District 4 in Porter and Laporte County would be dropped into District 2 that stretches all the way down to Whitley County.
These are entirely different communities with entirely different economies and priorities.
I've hosted many, many town halls to hear from my constituents about mid-cycle redistricting.
And not a single person could point to Whitley County or had any connection to it.
It's a beautiful county.
It's a beautiful courthouse, but I have yet to hear from a single constituent in Northwest Indiana that believes that they should be redistricted into the same community that votes for the congressional leader all the way on the other side of the state.
These town halls were packed events.
And if you've ever been to one of my town halls, I start off every single town hall with a statement, there are no dumb questions.
You're here to learn.
I serve you equally.
And intolerance of any position will not be tolerated.
I've had people that have come to my town halls and strongly disagree with me on my position on legalization of marijuana and charter schools.
So I was, even I was surprised that not a single person came in support of mid-cycle redistricting.
And that's not just my district, that's the region.
They feel like they will go from the forgotten to the forsaken.
These are not just Democrats.
I've heard from countless conservatives, as of you, about how it's one thing to feel disappointed in seeing your candidate lose, but it's completely wrong to feel like your candidate is handpicking their voters and not only handpicking them, but more importantly, whenever they want.
That's essentially the standard that we're setting.
That's exactly why during the 2021 redistricting process, you fought so hard to keep communities of interest together.
The region in District 1, South Bend in District 2, Fort Wayne in District 3, Indianapolis was District 7.
And these maps made sense, and they were defended ferociously by this body.
Each district currently shares the economic, cultural, and environmental concerns.
And in 2021, you made sure to honor those differences.
Now, one of my favorite members of this chamber has repeated to me, and usually after a spirited and a respectable debate, Senator Pohl, that's a solid argument.
But ultimately, elections have consequences.
And I have to respect that.
He's right.
If we want to win, we've got to win on our ideals, and we've got to get out there and win those elections.
But that loses all meaning when we're ensuring that elections can be manipulated whenever so that it'll avoid all consequences.
Now, one thing that I've heard is that if it were the other way around, I'm sure these maps could be drawn right now for five to four.
And I'll tell you this: I've said this time and time again: I would vote no, no questions asked.
And here's why: I need to be able to look my constituents in the eye, and I need to make sure that they still trust me.
I need them to know that I know that short-term political gain is not worth losing the trust of what's left in our institution.
The same institution that protects our citizens, the same institution that writes the laws that gives us our rights and rights our wrongs, losing that trust is wholly avoidable.
But once it's gone, restoring that trust is not possible, not in an election cycle, and potentially not in a generation.
I'd like to point us to Federalist, Alexandria Hamilton from the Federalists from 59 to 61.
Election regulations must be stable and free from fractional abuse.
Hamilton argued for steady, predictable election rules.
Indiana's mid-decade map changes are the kind of factional-driven manipulation that Hamilton cautioned us against.
We have a responsibility to every voter in this state to preserve one Hoosier one vote.
I ask you to join me in opposing this bill.
Let's do what's right, and let's keep our promise and the trust of the people of Indiana.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Senator.
Senator Randolph to speak.
Senator Randolph to speak on the bill.
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
The state of Indiana, comprised of 6 million-plus people, of the state of Indiana, you have 92 counties.
And in those 92 counties are represented by 100 in the House of Representatives and 50 state senators.
I'm trying to speak legally because I had some dental work done, and so it doesn't come out concise, but I'm trying to make it concise as possible.
And when you go through the state of Indiana, we have traditions.
And one of the traditions of Indiana, just like any other state, has what is called a census.
Every 10 years or every decade of 10 years, there is a census where there's a count.
And the count is based upon proportion to the population.
And the population is the ones that dictate representation, our respective districts.
And so in those counting, in terms of the districts and everything, there's no winners and there's no losers.
And the person who's in control or the group is control of the respective Senate are the ones that dictate how the mask will be drawn.
And human nature says when that's done so, you're going to do it to try to favor yourself.
And that's human nature.
That doesn't make you a good person, a bad person.
You're not bad at all, but you try to be a winner.
Everybody are good people, but everybody wants to be a winner.
So the only question is whether or not there is going to be a fairness about the process and whether or not there's going to be honesty about the process.
And so when you look at that, that might be diagnosically opposed to winners and losers.
And it makes me think about a movie, okay?
And before I get to the movie, when I think about like Arizona had what is called a registring commission.
And that commission comprised of independent people who are not legislators.
And they're the ones that decided in terms of whether or not the process would be fair.
They took it away from the biasness that the individual people that controlled the respective general assemblies would have.
And they made a decision concerning what they thought was fair.
And they made an honest decision.
You had a controversy with that.
Lawsuit was developed, and they won.
The legislators by law are charged with dealing with redistricting.
But they can assign, they can assign a commission, and Arizona did that.
State of Iowa, our neighbor, Farmland, had a legislative process.
They had a redistricting commission appointed by the legislator.
And when I think about that, Iowa has never had an issue concerning drawing of the maps.
Never.
You ask yourself why.
Why?
Because an independent commission was based upon residents and citizens of the respective state.
So therefore, it was fair and they were honest about putting together.
And I say, by fair and honesty, I think about this movie.
And everybody probably saw it.
John Chavolta and Saturday Night Live.
Remember that movie?
He got up and he was the heck of a dancer, right?
And he had the show that focused on him dancing.
And then toward the end, they had a dance contest.
And in that dance contest, he did his dancing.
But before him, there was a Hispanic couple that got up and danced.
And John Travolta, while I was watching the Spanish couple, he said, you know, they're good.
They're very good and everything.
I know he said, Judge Abby, you're going to win.
No, but they were good.
They were better.
And the judges did what?
They gave the check and the trophy to John Travolta.
John Tavolta said, wait a minute, I'm honesty.
I'm fair.
And that was not fair.
So he took the trophy and the check and he went over and gave it to the Hispanic couple and say, you're the winner you won.
You deserve this trophy and you deserve this check.
And he took his girlfriend and left.
Who was the winner and who was the loser?
Fairness and honesty.
John Travolta recognized the fairness about the process.
He said it was not fair.
Therefore, he decided he was going to be honest and let the Hispanic couple know that they were the winner.
So the bottom, the bottom line is fairness and honesty.
The majority, human nature, says we want to win.
And so how do you take that away from making it fair and honesty?
You give it to an outside independent commission.
So the voters of the state of Indiana, legislative process, which we have authorization to do so, should appoint a commission independent of us so they can be what?
They can be fair and they can be honest.
And that's the best way to deal with redistricting, not by the majority or the majority having input concerning what's in the best interest.
Why?
Because we're here to represent who?
The voters that put us in office, the people of the state of Indiana.
So when I'm reading of sections in the bill which talk about a presumption that any injunctive relief can only be sought through the Supreme Court, that seems to me as though the bill is instructing any individual or parties interested in challenging the law that they must bypass the traditional course of such a suit.
And basically what for others that may not have it in front of them or for the public, let me summarize as a part of my answer what Section 3 does.
Sets the ground rules for court proceedings regarding redistricting cases for either federal or state legislative districts.
So I think this portion of the bill I think folks could be even if you're against redistricting, I think you could be for this section of the bill because we have seen in recent times All over the country,
chaos has been injected into the redistricting process, or excuse me, into the election process by lawsuits.
I heard someone mention over the House a strategy on the other side.
I don't know whether it was accurate or whether it was how factual it was, but the accusation was that the strategy was sue till it's blue.
So I think the citizens benefit from certainty for an expeditious process to be laid out where election grievances can be settled quickly.
And you don't know how they're going to be settled, but you at least, I think both sides, in any case, want them to be settled quickly so that they don't cause chaos and interruptions in the election process.
unidentified
Thank you.
I completely concur with that observation.
The fact that there are actual, I would call them legislative findings in the bill itself believes that there are, at least within someone's mind, the drafters of this language, and I realize you're the sponsor, so you didn't draft it necessarily, and you may have contributed this or you may not have.
But I would agree that a prompt, orderly determination of apportionment issues by a court of last resort is critical for preserving electoral integrity, protecting voter confidence, and preventing chaotic disruption of the electoral process.
Is it also possible that by defeating this bill, we would accomplish the same thing today?
I disagree.
Okay.
I won't press your answer because I know you're telling me the absolute truth.
Just a few more questions along this line of argumentation.
So you don't feel that this opens the potential for judicial review, but should that occur, would you anticipate that any of those who have been supporters or participants in or those in the legislative body who actually vote for this legislation would become at some point subject to criminal charges as a result of that participation?
Well, we're getting into hypothetical bill here, and I don't see, I just, again, if you, when you speak on the bill, if you want to elaborate on that point, fine.
I have no idea where you're going with that.
unidentified
Well, the reason I raised the questions is because the bill actually addresses that very concern.
And so I'm trying to understand the bill language and see how it's applied in your mind as compared to how it might be applied in my mind and see if I'm willing to concur with your conclusions or not, which is fine.
And if you don't feel equipped to answer that question from your own thoughts, that's fine.
Neither one of us are lawyers, and I don't know what I'm saying.
I don't see the connection between this and my oath of office.
unidentified
I do sincerely appreciate your participation in the debate.
Thank you.
Permission to speak on the bill.
Senator Walker to speak on the bill.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the General Assembly.
Recently, I spoke and I said I'm a rule follower.
I've received a little attention for that.
It's not warranted.
It's not desirable.
It's not in my interest to make a name for myself.
But I do have to bring this body's attention to the Indiana Constitution.
And I'm going to address this to consider Article 1, which is commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights, Article 20.
And I can read it for you because it's very brief.
Section 20 of the Bill of Rights, Article 1, says, quote, in all civil cases, the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.
And inviolate is not a word we use commonly, but I think we can understand the meaning from the word violate, start for starters.
But in legal terms, inviolate has the implication of being sacred as opposed to being just a piece of the law.
And since I don't anticipate this being a criminal case, I'm assuming it's going to be a civil action.
And I think that assumption is pretty well founded.
As I've said, I'm not an attorney.
I have asked a few attorneys to review this language with me, and I got a shoulder shrug from a couple of them because they said, I'm not sure this has ever been challenged in the context in which you're challenging the constitutionality of this bill.
And again, I know of my colleagues' oath of office and their sworn duty to uphold it and how sacred that is as well.
I realize someone may come up follow me and say, well, but the bill says if anything is found to be in violation, we could move forward with the rest of the bill.
Well, that's fine.
Even the author himself admitted he doesn't know whether that's going to be a legal challenge of the bill.
I don't know whether there's going to be a legal challenge of the bill.
I don't intend to file one.
But I can say this without question.
I cannot myself support a bill for which there must be a legal injunction in order for it to be found constitutional, and I still don't think that that injunction can reverse the intent of the bill.
I believe the bill, on its face, is unconstitutional.
I have a lot of other beliefs about this bill, and I've shared some of those, and I'm not going to share any more of those today.
I appreciate your attention.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Goode.
Speak on the bill.
Senator Good is recognized to speak on the bill.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of this Senate.
Are we not blessed to be Americans and Hoosiers?
And on this day, the 209th birthday of the great state of Indiana, thank you, Senator Glick, for reminding us that.
Members of this assemblage, we find ourselves forged in the political history of this great state.
I'm a Christian first, then an American, then a conservative, then a Republican.
In that order, I'm also a Hoosier through and through.
I wish to speak on the bill not to sway a yes vote or a no vote.
I have too much respect for each of you as well as for this great legislative institution to do that.
I do believe, however, it is my duty to convey a few points of view from the constituent voices I have heard pertaining to HB 1032 and mid-decade redistricting.
My job as state senator is to best represent District 38 and the Hoosiers who call it home.
Throughout this process, I have worked hard to be accessible and to hear directly from the residents of Clay, Sullivan, and Vigo counties.
In addition to being the only Republican legislator in Indiana to host a listening session on this issue, I've spoken with numerous constituents individually and reviewed all the correspondence I received from my district.
The overwhelming feedback from constituents, regardless of political leaning or party affiliation, has clearly demonstrated that the consensus of Hoosiers in District 38 is to vote against HB 1032.
The feedback is focused on three main concerns.
First, my constituents are disappointed that the proposed map would split the counties of the Wabash Valley into two congressional districts.
These counties, with strong encouragement from the state of Indiana and three governor administrations, are working collaboratively as an economic development region and currently have clear, straightforward representation by our member of Congress, Mark Messmer.
Splitting these counties into separate congressional districts, I believe, creates confusion and barriers to cooperation.
Secondly, Clay County residents are unhappy that their county would be drawn into a district with Indianapolis and central Indiana suburbs, which would dilute the voices of this important rural county.
Now, I've already given my colleague Senator Buchanan a heads up on what I'm about to say next.
It's no offense to him or Boone County.
But there are many in west-central Indiana who have not forgotten the Indianapolis-based politicians who secretly planned a leap district benefiting Boone County with the very real threat of taking millions and millions and millions of gallons of water every day from the Wabash River.
I intervened directly with the previous governor on that issue.
And I understand why my constituents in Clay County and the northern Wabash River counties would be immensely frustrated if they were drawn into a district with Indianapolis and Boone County.
Third, for years, Indiana Senate District enjoyed the public service of my predecessor, State Senator John Ford, one of the finest public servants I have ever known.
He chaired the State Senate Elections Committee in 2021 that produced the congressional map observed today.
This map was the result of steadfast and earnest work, as well as multiple hearings across the state.
It is one that most Hoosiers agree with, and the current map encountered no lawsuits.
Many constituents raised concerns that implementing new maps in such a short time period would likely result in lengthy lawsuits that would be both expensive to the taxpayer while placing immense pressure on our county clerks.
Additionally, a number of Republicans have expressed concern that the maps would politically backfire on Indiana Republican congressional incumbents and candidates, particularly in the 8th Congressional District.
All of these concerns remind me of the wisdom of our founding fathers.
They designed a 10-year census to guide fair representation, entrusting states with the responsibility to update their districts to match shifting populations.
Indiana did this just four years ago.
The map produced was celebrated by legislative leadership, and Indiana again served as a national model for getting things right through Hoosier common sense.
I appreciate all the arguments made for and against redistricting, and I greatly respect the individuals making all of those arguments.
I want to again go on record.
I've done so privately to folks with the media.
I love and appreciate the President of the United States.
I appreciate the members of the president's team who have worked hard in their advocacy.
They serve their country and president with distinction.
And I'm grateful for the public and private feedback of the members of our Indiana Congressional Delegation.
I love and respect and appreciate our governor and the members of this legislative body.
We all have our constituents who hold us accountable.
Most importantly to me, I appreciate and love and listen the most to the residents of Clay, Sullivan, and Vigo counties.
Collectively, I serve them, and they are my priority in this legislative chamber.
I've done my very best to quietly and respectfully listen to the people I represent, and I'm confident that my vote reflects the will of my constituents.
And I would like to conclude with a goal for the future.
Friends, whether we realize it or not, whether we accept it or not, the forces that define this vitriolic political affairs in places outside of Indiana have been gradually and now very blatantly infiltrated the political affairs in Indiana.
Misinformation, cruel social media posts, over-the-top pressure from within this State House and outside, threats of primaries, threats of violence, acts of violence.
Friends, we're better than this, are we not?
You know, in the middle of last week and in the midst of all of this drama that was going on in the other chamber or the other side of the State House, something absolutely incredible happened a couple of miles away from the State House.
Two great Hoosiers, Eli Lilly President Dave Ricks and Indiana University President Pamela Witten jointly announced a major clinical research collaboration of about $40 million to work directly with Hoosiers addressing Alzheimer's and oncology health threats.
It was an incredible thing to witness.
And I realized again at that moment while everything was going on over here, what was going on over there.
We can't allow ourselves to keep getting caught up in all of this noise.
We have to redirect our focus on what really matters, I believe, to Hoosiers.
The cost of living, the cost of doing business, the cost of health care, electricity, natural gas, additional tax relief, education, workforce development, job creation.
These are the things I believe that we as state senators can truly influence.
These are the issues that are on the minds of my constituents or are holding me accountable to take on.
I'm going to conclude here in a way that I often conclude other speeches when I'm out and about in the district with the following phrase: the free world is counting on the United States of America.
Friends, the United States of America is counting on the state of Indiana.
When I usually say these words, I deliver them in the context of U.S. national and economic security.
Our state's greatest contributions to the United States priorities are nothing short and amazing.
The life sciences, human and animal, and plant health, microelectronics, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, cyber security, cyber defense, cyber warfare.
U.S. national economic security interests and indeed the free world must have Indiana's contributions.
But today, our country and indeed the free world must have one equally important contribution.
Hoosier common sense.
My vote on this legislation will reflect just that.
Common sense.
And I urge every member here today to embrace common sense when they cast their vote and that other defining Hoosier trait that's near and dear to our hearts.
Hoosier hospitality.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Jackson.
Senator Jackson to speak.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
To begin, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.
And my life is not going to end today.
I refuse to be silent when the voices of my community are at risk of being drowned out.
I want to present to you the distinct and powerful features of Marion County, ones that we have heard from the last week about the maps, but ones that are about to be fractured and overshadowed in these new maps.
My district, Senate District 34, includes the east side, far east side, near east side, and portions of the city of Lawrence.
Under these proposed maps, my Senate district would be divided into three distinct and different congressional districts, six, seven, and nine.
This is fragmentation, and fragmentation has consequences.
The lived experiences on the east side of Indianapolis are not the lived experiences of Hoosiers in Harrison County or Fayette County.
These experiences are not interchangeable, and they cannot be effectively represented under one diluted congressional umbrella designed without regard for these differences.
According to the United Way of Central Indiana ALICE and property maps, my district has more than 14,000 residents experiencing poverty.
Moreover, Marin County's poverty rate is 11.1%, which is among the highest in the state.
In contrast to that, Harrison County's poverty rate is 5.7%, which is almost half a Marion County's poverty rate.
These are not small differences.
These are structural, economic, and generational differences, and they matter, folks.
Let me break this down another way.
We each serve on committees in this chamber.
Some assignments reflect our professional background, but many reflect the issues most important to our constituents and their communities of interest.
The same is true in Congress.
In the proposed Congressional District 9, five counties are rural, five are mixed-rule, and the only one is urban.
The likelihood that the member of Congress will focus on rural and mixed-rule initiatives is not high.
It is expected.
That is their job.
That must represent the core needs of the district.
But what does that mean for the urban Hoosiers who suddenly find themselves placed in a district whose needs and priorities and realities look nothing like their own?
It means their voices and the voices of my constituents are not just minimized, they are muted.
Rural Indiana deserves a champion.
Rural communities need representation that understands its unique qualities, including farming challenges, limited access to rural health, care gaps in infrastructure, and connectivity.
While my constituents in the east side of Indianapolis face high levels of poverty and food deserts, health disparities due to inequities and increased housing insecurity.
You cannot ask a single member of Congress to effectively and equitably serve communities that live two different economic realities.
Work in two different economies and experience two different worlds can't happen, folks.
This is not fair representation, but rather an impossible assignment in which my constituents will pay the price.
This is what map drawing should be about.
Every 10 years, we take on daunting tasks of ensuring one Hoosier, one vote, and communities of interest not fractured around the state.
What this map does today is diluting voices and dividing the voice.
It fractures into a vote.
You are not dividing, simply drawing lines, you are redrawing futures.
Futures for us, futures here today, and futures for generations to come.
Thank you to the members of the public and communities across the state for showing up, emailing, calling, testifying, sending letters, posting on social media, and making your voices heard through this process.
Thank you.
In conclusion, I want to leave you with one more quote from Martin Dr. Martin Luther King, who told us, the time is always right to do the right thing.
So today, members of this body, I'm asking you to do the right thing for all constituents.
I think I was here this very time last year, almost last year, and those who showed up at the State House.
Not the political thing, not the easy thing, but the right thing.
On behalf of my constituents and all Hoosiers of this great state, I will be voting no on House Bill 1032.
Thank you and God bless.
Thank you, Senator.
Further discussion?
All right, Senator Harley.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
It's an honor to stand in this chamber with all of you serving Hoosiers.
I'm a sixth-generation Hoosier.
I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where we used to buy our sweet corn straight from the farm, go pick strawberries right out people's backyards.
But now I have the privilege of serving the densest urban district here in the state.
The 150,000 constituents that I serve are nestled into 20 square miles.
I have a deep appreciation for the variety of cities and towns that we have across our state.
My district includes Fortune 100 company headquarters, the best women's basketball team in the nation, a world-class convention center that helps us host over 30 million visitors a year, bringing over $5 billion of economic impact to our city.
District 46 is home to renowned artists and small business owners and creatives that give Indy that special sauce.
It's a beautiful and cohesive community that time and time again comes together in times of need and opportunity alike.
As I look at House Bill 1032 and the newly drafted congressional districts, I noticed that even my own neighborhood is split in half.
It's plainly evident that communities of compactness were not considered.
And as you've already heard today, Indianapolis is being split into four different districts, and these four districts span anywhere from Newton County in northwest Indiana to Clark County, which is a stone's throw from Louisville.
Let's make this make sense.
How do we make sense for the farmers whose agricultural needs run the risk of being overshadowed by large-scale urban infrastructure projects?
How does it make sense for cities like Muncie or West Lafayette that are being split, or rural counties and townships throughout the state that risk weakened advocacy for funding and interrupted long-term planning for education, health care, and childcare?
The reason that our current maps have an A rating is because they take into account communities of interest and they take into account compactness.
But this map splits apart 23 different cities and combines our urban centers with rural towns.
On the members' desk today, I put some handouts for you.
And you'll notice that on the first page that you've got the six different counties that are split apart.
On the second page, it lists the eight different townships that are split apart by township level from the top of our state to the bottom.
This splitting of communities doesn't just silence Democrats, it silences Hoosiers, neighbors.
This map silences farmers and fractures our bioscience industry.
It divides up neighborhood blocks.
But to me, this feels like it was never about maps.
This has been about power.
And so when we vote today, we're voting on whether folks have the power to choose their elected officials or whether that power lies with high-paid consultants from Texas.
We're voting on whether the power to govern lies with our state or with outsiders.
And so to me, the choice is clear.
I'll be voting now.
Thank you.
Is there further discussion?
Attorney Zgoski.
Attorney Zygotsky to speak on the bill.
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
Just for a moment, let's return to June of 1816.
In Corridon, under the Constitution Elm, farmers, lawyers, and veterans of the Revolution, seeking relief from the hot summer sun, crafted much more than mere pages of law.
They formed a foundation and built a structure designed to provide countless generations with a continuation of hope.
Indiana is the name of that hope, a place where men and women could rise by their own labor, their own virtue, their own individuality.
In the Constitution they ordained, they wrote, to the end that justice be established, public order maintained, and liberty perpetuated.
Two centuries later, those words still call us back, not to nostalgia, but to accountability.
19 years ago, as I began my service in the General Assembly, I could feel the weight of that history.
I gaze upon the spirit of Indiana so predominantly displayed in the House chamber, and time and again I imagined how truly difficult our early days must have been.
Our founders knew hardship far greater than we.
They carved canals through forests, laid rails through frontier land, built public schools as a promise for every child.
They imagined a future they would never fully see.
They worked as if the full weight of our future rested upon their shoulders.
They realized that it did.
In the Senate chamber today, our calling is for us to seek the clarity our founders displayed.
Their decisions were of pure conviction.
They had no convenience.
When we revisit their decisions, principles emerge, providing guidance to our way forward, fairness, opportunity, honesty, and civility.
We all know greater work is before us.
Childcare funding, education, and the rising cost of living gripping every household.
These issues demand the same courage our early leaders showed.
The courage to step back, to remember who we are, and to move forward as Hoosiers.
When people vote, they have a right for their voices to be heard.
They deserve faith in the system, faith in us.
The elm tree in Corridon, Indiana's birth, didn't take place in marble halls, but through perseverance and shared hope.
Today, let's take this moment and just stand for a moment beside our founders and listen to the clarity of their voices.
In this chamber today, we stand as stewards of what they began, the watchmen of their dream.
The gleaming candlelight still shining bright through all the sycamores for me.
unidentified
Our founders' hope rests with us today.
I think what they'd like to see is for us to keep that gleaming candlelight shining bright.
Let their wisdom be our wisdom for our communities, for our state, for our Indiana home.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Yoder.
Senator Yoder, Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. President, and colleagues in the Senate.
As we gather for this vote, I am reminded of something that I'm sure many of us have heard many times throughout our lives in Indiana, and that is: love your neighbor.
It's just the Hoosier way.
That has always been our quiet truth.
From the farms where mornings begin before the sun, to the mills where generations worked side by side, to the neighborhoods where front porches still remain the places of wisdom.
Across this state, everyday people have shaped our story with steady hands and honest voices.
Over these past months, those voices rose again and again.
Hoosiers spoke with a clarity that cannot be forgotten.
From small towns to city blocks, from winding county roads to the crossroads of our busiest streets, they showed up.
Some filling these hallways with their physical presence, others reaching out through calls, texts, emails, handwritten notes, and quiet conversations in grocery aisles and church parking lots.
In every way, Hoosiers know how, they came forward to defend the promise that every voice deserves a place in our democracy.
And they reminded us of something deeper.
A map can draw lines, but only people can draw legitimacy.
Their participation, their presence, is the heartbeat of this moment.
They showed us that democracy is not fragile in Indiana.
It is alive.
It is working.
It is standing right outside those doors, asking us to honor it.
Today's vote is more than a decision.
It is a reflection of who we are.
Will we listen to what Hoosiers overwhelmingly are telling us?
Will we protect the power that belongs to them and them alone?
There have been moments in Indiana's history when we served as a firewall, not against a party, but against losing ourselves.
Against forgetting that fairness is not a courtesy, it is a covenant.
Against forgetting that trust is not given, it is earned.
And we are in one of those moments now.
Years from today, when Hoosiers look back on this vote, they won't remember the speeches.
They won't remember the procedures.
They will remember we stood with them.
Whether we kept faith with the values they taught us: honesty, fairness, responsibility, respect.
So today I will be voting no, not in protest, but in promise to them.
To every Hoosier who spoke up, to every community that believed their voice should matter, to every child who will inherit the democracy we shape today.
And I want them to be able to say, that was the day Indiana remembered its values.
That was the day the people's voices were stronger than politics.
That was the day our leaders chose us.
Let this vote be worthy of the generations watching now and the generations yet to come.
Let this be a moment when Indiana once again chooses its people.
Today, let us remember who we are.
Today, let us choose Indiana.
Thank you.
Senator, further discussion.
senator brown thank you mr president and members of the senate Try to make this light at the beginning.
I'm a rules follower, too.
That's why I was always continually amazed when my children broke the rules.
I could never believe it.
But I didn't bring my rules book up to here today because I don't need it.
We're not breaking any rules here today.
I can assure you of that.
Just doing something that we're able to do legally, politically, constitutionally, even.
Redistricting is about who is in charge.
It's to one of my colleagues' points, actually is about trying to predetermine political outcomes.
Absolutely.
It's a privilege policymakers have.
Who holds the purse strings?
That's what this is about.
Here in this state, we have a Republican governor.
We have a Republican supermajority in the House.
We have a Republican supermajority currently in this chamber.
And there's a reason for that.
And there's a reason why we make the decisions we make because of the policies and the principles that those of us who are Republicans believe in.
So I am concerned because I can see what's coming down the line.
I know that last year, even in a difficult budget year, with runaway Medicaid expenditures, we passed a balanced budget and we fully funded our obligations.
But when Democrats were in charge over 20 years ago, when they had control here in Indiana, they spent the $2 billion surplus and then left the next administration with a $1.2 billion deficit.
That's a delta of over $3 billion.
Not that it matters, but in today's hours, that's $5.5 billion.
Insurmountable.
Insurmountable.
More than 10% of our budget.
That's what happens when Democrats are in control.
What does it mean when Democrats control NDC?
Because that's what it's about.
The one way this body and that body, and if our governor signs the bill, the one way we have influence over our representatives and all 435 there is for us to be able to draw our maps.
I'll never give up that power.
And when we do that, we are able to influence just a tiny bit with the nine congresspeople from Indiana, a tiny bit, what they think of this state there.
That's what our responsibility is.
So, how can we do that when we know in the last census, red states were the ones overwhelmingly undercounted, not the blue states.
Blue's Democrat, in case people stop counting.
And guess what happened then?
Nothing.
Do you know why?
You can't go back and change the Constitution of the 435.
That's done.
The only way we can bolster Republican voices in Congress is to do this.
So, what does it look like when Democrats are in control?
This is an imaginary hypothetical.
This is what they're asking for right now in our House of Representatives in Washington, D.C., with a narrow Republican majority.
They want to get rid of the Hyde Amendment.
Some of you didn't know what that was.
The Hyde Amendment makes sure that our federal funding does not go to fund abortions.
That has been a long-standing agreement, crazily enough, a bipartisan agreement since 1977.
That is going to be jettisoned the minute the Democrats have the House.
And why do I know that?
Because they're asking for it now.
And if you don't think that's going to happen, I can tell you my colleagues, since we passed our pro-life bill post-ops, have consistently tried to undermine our pro-life laws.
Just in this state, where they have a super minority.
Think what they're going to do in D.C. After that, what happens with the defense bill that they were voting on yesterday?
Democrats were against that.
When I looked that up yesterday, I thought, oh my gosh, I'm not a Democrat, but they said it's going to undermine democracy and harm our military readiness.
What's happening to our country?
Oh, wait, what does that mean?
Because the current defense spending bill limits funding for military women to have abortions.
That's why they're against it.
Why does it harm military readiness?
I don't know.
Maybe because our Secretary of War Heg said no more dudes in dresses.
And there's no more DEI when we're trying to get our troops ready to put their lives on the line and protect our country.
That's why the Democrats are voting against defense spending.
Will you please remove, please remove them from the gallery?
Officers, please remove them.
Get out.
You sound pretty crazy.
Why don't you get out?
Get out.
Thank you.
Senator, you may continue.
The GAO, which is a non-partisan investigatory body of Congress, just last year in 2024, note the timing under the previous administration, set up 24 fake Obamacare accounts.
22 of them received over fake, no citizenship, no ID, no income levels.
22 of them received over $10,000 a month.
Who wants to extend the Obamacare subsidies right now?
You say it's about affordability.
It's also about fraud.
Fraud.
Democrats in the state of Minnesota have a supermajority there.
If this continues, we're going to clear the gallery.
So, this one more outburst, and I'm clearing the gallery up there.
Get out.
You do better, get out.
And let me.
One more outburst, and that whole gallery is getting cleared out.
That's your final warning.
And let me be clear: the governor of Minnesota could be our vice president right now.
The governor of Minnesota, and this is a New York Times article, I just want to say, so let's be clear, not a particularly partisan media outlet, said that, and I quote, over five years within the small diaspora, millions of dollars were never provided in federal funding.
59 people so far have been indicted.
You know how much money has been wasted?
A billion dollars.
A billion dollars.
In fact, even in 2022, under the Biden's Merrick Garland, not somebody we consider to be in our camp, called it the country's largest pandemic relief fraud he's ever seen.
You know what they did?
Democrats in control.
It's beyond despicable.
They claim to be feeding tens of thousands of children with dollars which never went to their hungry mouths and instead pocketed pocketed.
They claim to have provided relief to the homeless.
Again, never received, pocketed.
Can you imagine if a vet was waiting for a bed and didn't get it because somebody defrauded them?
What would that billion dollars do to the state of Indiana?
You know what the governor recently said of that state about that program and the fraud?
They welcome their Scandinavian-type health care system and will continue to be welcoming.
Trust me, I looked.
No apology, no remorse.
So we had comments about elections have consequences.
Yeah, that's why we redistrict.
Who are we most famously remembering saying that?
President Obama, when Senate McCain protested over the fact that Obamacare was written in the dark.
And he said, I won, it's over.
Elections have consequences.
The U.S. is waiting.
The U.S. is waiting to make sure that we move forward as a democratic republic, not a socialist Democrat country.
California had independent commissions.
Some have said that's the fair and honest way to go.
Apparently, it's only fair and honest when it supports your side.
Because California, with an independent condition, quickly jettisoned that when they decided the scale was being tipped in a fair way to Republicans.
So in a state with 40% representation out of 52 representatives to Congress, 7% at best will be Republicans.
I don't think that independent commission is going to come back anytime soon to rewrite those maps.
Who's your voices are going to be harder to hear?
Without this, they're going to be silenced because there will be no conservative voices in Washington, D.C.
The few from this state will be yelled and screamed at, not unlike some in our gallery, by the Democrats who will be controlling our Congress.
And I will leave you with this one thought.
We had conversations about the bill being challenged.
And that is the one thing since I've been here.
There has not been a pro-life bill that we've passed has not been challenged.
And we lost some.
And I would do it again.
And I beg my taxpayers who've paid those dollars to defend those suits to stand with me because ultimately we got it done.
But when you say that the rights of one person are not more important than another, guaranteed.
But I can tell you, if Democrats are controlled, the rights of the unborn will be science, and their voices matter too.
I cannot support these maps.
I can support the bill.
I can't support the arguments against.
Thank you.
Thank you, Senator.
Further discussion?
All right.
Senator Johnson.
Mr. President, members of the Senate, it's been a long conversation.
I'm going to make it a little bit longer.
There's a chapter in Timothy that talks about speaking to your elders a little bit and not, I think it says not to go after them in the simple terms, but speak to them like your father, right?
I think I'm the youngest member of our caucus.
I think Senator Pohl has me by a couple days in the chamber here, but I think we probably have four or five censuses ahead of us in this, so it's not going to be the end of the conversation.
But I found it very interesting.
I wasn't here when we drew the maps before.
If you would have told me that a Republican supermajority would leave two seats on the table, I wouldn't have believed you.
I think this is an opportunity to right that wrong.
I really do.
It's an interesting moment.
One thing I do know that I can talk on that's happened during this moment is making decisions under duress.
What I do for a living.
Many of you have been threatened.
I hope everybody in this chamber knows what my family went through this last year.
Threats are easy for me.
Easy.
Some of you have been in way worse things than I've been through, so I appreciate that.
Some of you are true patriots in this room, so I don't want any of that to be questioned.
But when someone tries to attack your church with violence, tries to take your life because of what you believe in, it changes how you fight a little bit.
It really does.
This is one of those moments where I thought we would have stood up a little bit stronger.
So I'm a little disappointed that we're here, even debating it still today.
I would have loved to stand up in August, hit the green button, and move on.
But I think it is one of the cool things about this job is you get to hit the red or green button, and I'm glad everybody's in this room because it is our job to make it known where we stand on the issues.
Someone was offended earlier when I said everything out there is kind of noise.
And really it is.
You know, I don't think X or Twitter or wherever call it as a real place.
I don't.
And everybody in this room knows where I stand.
Some of you ask me, and I got a phone call from somebody who really doesn't like me yesterday asking me a medical question.
I think it's a really cool place to stand to get to answer some of those and serve as the Senate physician with many of you ailing that showed up today.
And that trust goes a long way with me.
But I find it interesting that we're on both sides of this, and I haven't really heard many arguments against redistricting from our side.
The other side has, but I haven't heard anybody stand up here and say, hey, this is a bad idea because.
I heard sat in committee for six hours.
We were there so long, I kind of forgot how long it went.
But, you know, I never really heard an argument against why redistricting was a bad idea.
I heard it was constitutional.
I heard it was legal.
But I yet stand up and say why this is a bad idea.
I find that interesting.
So I'm going to ask you to vote for this.
It didn't take me long to get there.
Many of you know I came out pretty early.
I went to my constituents, the people who were against this.
I talked to them.
I tried to lead a little bit and say, hey, I know you guys don't like this very much, but here's why it's a good idea.
Guess what?
They're mostly in support of this now.
Not all of them.
We'll get there.
I'm not going to keep you up here forever.
We've got a tough choice in the next few minutes here when we vote.
I know it probably didn't sway anybody at this moment, but just go deep down for a second.
Take away any displeasure you have with the president or the governor, with each other.
Try to think about the merits of what redistricting at this moment means.
What it means for Indiana in the big picture, what it means for your constituents, what it means for our congressional delegation.
I think if you take a moment and step back from the emotion of the moment, you'll find that it's easy to vote yes on this.
Thank you.
Senator, do you ready to speak on the bill?
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate.
Four years ago, as a candidate for the first political office of my life, I promised voters that I would always tell them the truth, even if it made them mad.
I believe in a republic, every elected official's duty is to cut through the self-interested talking points.
Our job is to seek the truth and to speak the truth.
That is how I approach every bill, and I approach this one no differently.
I respect and love every one of you in this body.
I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
And if you have followed that process and reached different conclusions, I will still respect you.
And I look forward to partnering with you on many more legislative fights to come.
But this issue is too important for me to not get up here today and share the truth as I see it after many hours of objectively pursuing it.
My bottom line is that after considering all the arguments offered in support of mid-cycle gerrymandering, I see no justification that outweighs the harms it would inflict upon the people's faith in the integrity of our elections and our system of government.
Some say we should gerrymander now because Democrats have been doing it for years, and it's time for Republicans to catch up.
That would be a sensible question to ask four years ago or four years in the future during the regular redistricting process.
But since Washington, D.C. is pushing that question on us now, let's answer it now.
Is one side behind in the gerrymandering arms race?
The best metric to measure that is to simply add all the votes for Congress across the nation and then to compare that percentage with how power is actually distributed.
If one side was more successful at gerrymandering, there would be a mismatch between those two numbers.
But that isn't the case.
Nationwide, Republicans won 51% of all the votes for Congress, and they won 51% of the seats.
Undeniably, there are multiple states with corrupt-looking maps and Democrat strongholds.
But this data shows Republicans have fully offset those maps in subtler, classier ways.
Another justification for mid-cycle gerrymandering is simply that we don't want Republicans to lose power.
I, like a super majority of you, do not want to see another Democrat speaker of the House.
But that isn't for me to decide.
And it isn't for anyone in this body to decide either.
Living in a free constitutional republic means we empower voters to make those decisions and we accept their will no matter what.
And this accountability makes us better.
It makes us more transparent, it sharpens our messages, and it improves our capacity to govern.
No one benefits when we shield those who hold power from the will of the voters.
Over the long run, this accountability keeps us relevant and it keeps us in power.
I understand and do not dispute that our current laws allow mid-cycle gerrymandering.
But the same can arguably be said of court packing to ridge judicial outcomes.
While both packing a court and packing a congressional district are technically constitutional, neither is in keeping with the spirit or principles of the Constitution.
Both are wrong, and both are in violation of the spirit of 1776 and 1787.
As a conservative, I want to maintain the moral standing to condemn both.
And for those of you from around the country tuning in today for the first time, make no mistake, I, like many of those who will join me in voting no today, are constitutional, fiscal, and religious conservatives.
What that means to me is that I believe in conserving the values, the culture, and the institutions that created American exceptionalism.
I have no problem telling you what a woman is and that men should not be playing in female sports.
From this very floor, I've authored and passed higher ed reform legislation that today is the nightmare of left-wing activist professors.
And over the last three years, and before it was popular to do so, I have repeatedly condemned the excesses of the IEDC.
These values and votes have earned me 100% rating from the Americans for Prosperity and 100% rating from Indiana Family Institute, as I have earned every year I have been here.
My point is that my opposition to mid-cycle gerrymandering is not in contrast with my conservative principles.
My opposition is driven by them.
The power to draw election maps is a sacred responsibility directly tied to the integrity of our elections and the people's faith in our constitutional system.
Normalizing mid-cycle gerrymandering would create a culture in which a political party could select new voters not once a decade, but any time it feared the consequences of an approaching election.
The history of power teaches us that elected officials will take any path available to them to protect their position.
Imagine a moderate Speaker of the House who passes a controversial legislation that attracts primary challengers to him and his caucus.
Imagine a principled but pesky member of a legislative body that pushes back against leadership and refuses to play by the rules of the majority caucus.
It is not far-fetched that in either scenario, the incumbent powers of the legislative branch could use off-cycle gerrymandering to defeat their opponents without a single election.
Why, as conservatives, would we give the mapmakers this power?
Any elected office from the U.S. Congress to school board could fall prey to this culture.
Such a shift would make it harder for the people to hold their elected officials accountable and it would erode our trust in elections.
Speaking of election integrity, this map, drawn primarily by somebody from not from here, gerrymanders so aggressively that it splits precincts across the state.
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The Republican Election Board staff member in my county with 40 years of experience tells me he would swear before a court of law that it's not that some Hoosiers might get the wrong ballot, it's that some Hoosiers will get the wrong ballot.
And that is true across the state.
That's because in my neighborhood, the bill uses dated precinct boundaries and carves up precincts with peninsulas as small as football fields.
Thousands of voters in my township will need to be manually assigned a ballot and mistakes will be made.
That is not what conservatives stand for.
Nor do we believe that the federal government should have the ability to dictate by threat or other means what should happen in our state.
We are a co-equal force of government, or at least we are supposed to be.
And as long as I have breath, I will use my voice to resist a federal government that attempts to bully, direct, and control this state or any state.
Giving the federal government more power is not conservative, nor is the idea that any single election or branch of the government should determine the fate of the country.
One of our worst presidents of all time, Woodrow Wilson, pushed the idea that America should be more like a parliamentary system in which a party could enact an aggressive agenda by winning a single election with a small majority.
But for the last hundred years, constitutional conservatives have been fighting this left-wing idea by standing up for the principle of separation of powers and federalism.
As long as we stay true to the Constitution, no single election result will determine the destiny of the nation.
Fighting fire with fire burns the world down.
The way you fight fire is with its opposite.
Doubling down on our constitutional principles and the Indiana way of doing politics are the water we need.
Some say Indiana doesn't know what time it is, but I think we know exactly what time it is.
It's time for patriots to stand by the Constitution and say we, the people of the United States, are the only ones who should ever decide an election.
It's time to say to no to pressure from Washington, D.C.
It's time to say no to removing accountability from elected officials.
It's time to say no to outsiders who are trying to run our state.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
Mr. President, members of the Senate, my fellow Hoosiers, today we find ourselves at a crossroads that very few legislatures in the history of this state have ever had to navigate.
The vote we are about to take is not simply procedural.
It's not just about lines on a map.
It's a vote of critical, epic proportion that will define Indiana's role in the recovery of this republic.
I have heard the word unprecedented thrown around like an accusation.
Those opposed say redistricting in the middle of a decade is breaking with tradition.
They say we're changing the rules.
To them I say this.
When your house is on fire, you don't worry about whether or not you're traditionally holding the hose the right way.
You do whatever it takes to put out the fire.
And make no mistake, for the last four years, our country was burning.
We are only now in this last year beginning to clear the smoke and to see the light again.
Friends, the courts have spoken clearly on this matter.
The question of legality is settled.
We have the constitutional right, And I would argue the moral obligation to draw the districts that reflect the political will and the value of the people who elected us.
But today, I am not here to argue the legalities.
I'm here to argue the necessity.
The White House, our partners in Washington, have asked us for help.
They've not asked for money.
And I've talked to almost everyone in my caucus, and not one of them has told me that they've been threatened by the White House.
So if it's happened, I'm unaware of it.
They've not asked us for money, and they've not asked us for blind loyalty.
They have asked us for reinforcements.
They have asked us to look at our map and ask ourselves if the current lines truly serve the best interests of our state and of our nation.
By passing this map, we are amplifying the voice of the Hoosier value system that is currently saving this country.
We have the opportunity today to deliver two additional Republican seats to the U.S. House of Representatives.
So why does that matter?
Why is two seats worth all of this?
It matters, friends, because numbers don't lie.
And the numbers coming out of the last 11 months tell a story of a nation being pulled back from the brink of disaster.
First, let's talk about the border.
For years, we were told that a secure border was impossible.
We were told that the flow of illegal drugs and human trafficking was just a global phenomenon.
And we had to live with it.
President Trump refused to accept that.
Since January of this year, the partnership between our state law enforcement and federal agencies have produced results that are nothing short of miraculous.
The latest data from customs and border protection is staggering.
As of May of 2025, illegal crossings at our southern border have dropped by 93% compared to the previous year.
Let that sink in.
93%.
We aren't just stopping the flow, we are restoring the rule of law.
In less than one year, the Department of Homeland Security reports confirm that over 2.5 million individuals have either been deported or have self-deported back to where they came from.
We have taken our sovereignty back and stopped the invasion at our border.
When we send two more conservative representatives to Washington, we're sending them to guard that progress to ensure that the border wall remains funded and manned.
We are voting today to make sure that we never go back to open borders.
Point number two: look at what this return to order means for our own families here in Indiana.
Every single one of us in this chamber knows a family that has been destroyed by the opiate epidemic.
Our communities have buried friends, families, children.
For a decade, the trend was a tragedy.
It went up and up and up.
But look at 2025.
Look at what happens when you combine a secure border with a government that actually prosecutes drug traffickers.
The CDC's provisional data through September this year shows a national decline in drug overdose deaths of nearly 24%.
That's one out of every four Hoosiers in our districts.
Here in Indiana, the Department of Health is reporting a 19.2% reduction in overdose deaths.
That isn't just a statistic.
That is thousands of Hoosier lives saved.
That's thousands of parents who will not get that midnight phone call this year.
A no vote today is a vote to risk a return to the days of record-breaking funerals for Hoosiers.
I, for one, refuse to go back.
Third, let's talk about the kitchen table issue that is crushing every Hoosier family because I've heard it mentioned here today: utility bills.
We have constituents choosing between heating their homes and feeding their children.
And why is that?
Because the Biden administration's relentless and ideological war on coal.
That's why.
Look at what has happened right here in our state.
Duke Energy, CenterPoint, NIPSCO, they have all come to the IURC requesting double-digit rate hikes.
Centerpoint's electric rates in southern Indiana have skyrocketed to some of the highest in the nation.
The Biden EPA forced the premature closure of gigawatts of reliable, affordable coal generation.
They strangled our power plants with impossible regulations on coal ash and carbon emissions, forcing utilities to spend billions on green compliance.
Billions that they are now extracting directly from the pockets of working-class Hoosiers.
We are sitting on a gold mine of affordable energy in this state.
But we were forbidden from using it.
By sending two more conservatives to Washington, we provide the votes needed to fully repeal those EPA mandates, unleash American energy dominance, and bring utility bills back down to earth.
We need representatives who will fight for Hoosier Energy, not green New Deal fantasies like the two Democrats that currently represent portions of Indiana in Congress.
Fourth, look beyond our borders on the world stage.
Remember when the experts told us that strength would lead to war?
Remember when they said that unwavering support for our allies would set the Middle East on fire?
In October, we witnessed the signing of the Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity.
We have seen a ceasefire in Gaza that is actually holding because it was not negotiated from a position because it was negotiated from a position of American strength, not an apology.
We are seeing the expansion of the Abraham Accords.
The world is stabilizing because America is leading again.
But leadership requires legislative support.
If we fail to secure a governing majority in the House that supports this agenda, we risk handing the keys back to the very people who destabilized the world in the first place.
On July 4th of this year, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was a brand new declaration on independence from waste, fraud, and abuse in our welfare programs.
Republicans across the country have been fighting for years to bring back basic program integrity and work requirements back to Medicaid and food stamps.
It was only because of the president's leadership and the Republican majority in the House that Congress was able to pass such historic legislation.
Now I hear critics across the aisle crying afoul.
They talk about fairness and they talk about balance.
Seems like a great time to remind everybody watching what Marion County looked like the last time Democrats drew the maps.
Three congressional districts Marion County was split into.
Oddly enough, I didn't hear one of my Democrat friends mention that today.
I don't think that's coincidental.
But let's look at the map of the country.
Let's look at how our friends on the left handle power when they have it.
They don't talk about fairness.
They talk about winning.
Do you know how many Republican members of Congress represent the state of Massachusetts?
These states have made a conscious choice to maximize their political power, to advance their agendas.
They have silenced conservative voters entirely.
So I refuse to sit in this chamber today and be lectured about tradition and norms when the other side plays for keeps.
We are not the aggressors here.
We didn't ask for this fight in Indiana.
We are simply asking to balance the scales.
We are ensuring that if they're going to play by those rules, then Indiana is not going to fight with one hand tied behind their back.
Colleagues, we have a unique opportunity to submit a partnership between Indianapolis and Washington, D.C. that is unprecedented in our state's history.
For too long, there's been a disconnect.
We passed good conservative legislation here at the state house, only to have it undermined by a federal bureaucracy that is at war with our values.
That era is over if we hold the line.
Our counterparts in D.C. have done the heavy lifting.
They've secured the border.
They've calmed the Middle East and they're saving lives in our emergency rooms.
Now they're asking us to do our part.
They're asking us to use the legal authority we possess to ensure that the conservative movement has the legislative cavalry it needs to finish the job.
If drawing a map that secures two more seats for the Republican Party means that we continue to see overdose deaths drop by 20%, then I'll draw that map every single day of the week and twice on Sunday.
If drawing a map means that we'll continue to see a 93% drop in illegal immigration, then I'll sign it with a smile on my face.
We're not here to be neutral arbiters of decline.
We're here to be active agents of American greatness.
So I ask you, do not shrink from this moment.
Do not hide behind tradition when the future of the Republic is at stake.
Because make no mistake, that's what the scope of your vote is today.
The courts have cleared the way.
The data has proven the case.
The precedent has been set by our opponents.
And the White House has made the call.
And it's time for Indiana to answer.
Vote yes for this map.
Vote yes for two more seats.
Vote yes for a safer, stronger, and more prosperous Indiana.
Thank you, Mr. President and members of the Senate.
Before I even get started, I want to tell you that there is a God, and we are not Him.
As much as I want to also confess that I'm the worst of sinners, but Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and thanks to his grace and mercy, I will see him face to face one day, and I hope it's as crowded as possible.
Many of you who are believers in this body are going to come to a different conclusion than me today.
I love y'all.
I love our friends on the other side.
I'm probably going to say some things that are offensive today, but I just can't help it.
I'm a little old country boy conservative from Pendleton, Indiana, and I run on sweet tea and fried potatoes.
And I'm going to do my best to lay the case out here.
We may win.
I may get run over like a tank by a tank, but I'm going to say what I got to say.
Mr. President, I'll probably use every bit of my time.
And just as I cut off the committee testimony when their time expired, I expect that you will cut me off.
I would appreciate it if you might give me maybe a 10-minute and a five-minute warning.
Thank you.
Okay.
So I've kind of got an impossible task today here.
It seems like a David and Goliath moment, and I didn't bring my slingshot.
I'm going to give you the best I got.
So how did we get here?
Our friends in Washington, President Trump and his administration, our congressional delegation, pointed out to us some things that we didn't really know before.
The other side is playing for keeps.
There's no question about it.
So let me share you a little bit of philosophy here.
You know, in government, one side wins, one side loses.
We rarely are happy with every decision we see out of government.
Let's talk about Federalist papers have been mentioned several times.
Let's talk about Federalist Paper 51 that I think is attributed to Madison.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
In the framing of a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this.
You must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government, but experience has taught us, has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
You've heard it said many times that we live in a democracy.
I think we live in a democratic republic is my interpretation.
And in a republic, the states have power.
The Constitution was designed not only to have checks and balances within the federal government, but the state legislatures are an external check and balance on the federal government.
We've got to play our part in that.
And you all know, before the, I believe it was the 17th Amendment, this body, in conjunction with our friends in the House, chose the senators.
We had the People's House, the House of Representatives, and we had the Senate, which was kind of like the state's ability to send ambassadors to the federal government to keep a check on the state's interest.
But we gave that up.
So now the last tool we have is to draw our legislative maps for the political outcome that our people in this state have voted for.
So we are that check and balance.
So I brought some visual aids here with me today just to show you how serious the other side is.
Senator Garton laid out those northeastern states that have zero Republican representation.
There's 21 congressional delegates from those states.
And if you come to the Midwest a little bit, you got Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri.
And we also have 21.
Missouri and Indiana drew maps that gave the Democrats a couple gimme seats.
So out of the 21 representatives from these three states, we have 17.
The other side did not do that.
They drew maps for political advantage.
And there are enough Republicans in this Northeast.
There could be Republican districts.
So right away, you've got an eight-vote deficit just from the different way that it has been handled.
Let's talk.
Let's look in a little more detail.
Here's some heat maps of Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The point here is to show that Republicans have been drawn into multiple districts to prevent them from having a representative.
The other side is playing for keeps.
You've heard about communities of interest.
Have you heard that, Sid?
Okay, let's look at Chicago.
The population of Chicago would warrant about 3.6 congressional districts.
So here is a representation of what, have you heard about compact maps?
We've heard that, haven't we?
That's a representation of what a compact map would look like in Chicago.
But they've drawn it into nine districts.
Now what you're seeing here is just the city proper.
These districts go out past the city limits and snake into surrounding counties that are heavily Republican.
Here's when you go out a little wider and you see just how far they go, they take full advantage of the Democratic majority in Chicago to ace out these people that probably got a lot in common with us, rural Midwesterners, hardworking men and women, blue-collar farmers.
Let's look in particular at a couple of the districts.
What we've got here is Illinois 1 and Illinois 2.
Look how they drew those maps.
They want you to play by a different set of rules than what they're willing to play by.
They're drowning out the voice.
You heard it said earlier.
We know Indiana has nine representatives.
If you do the math, that's a little over 2% of the federal House of Representatives.
And we're getting deluded by the Democrats and what they're doing in these other states.
You know, I want to quote another person that helped write some of the Federalist papers.
And that was John Adams.
And he said, facts are stubborn things.
And I'll probably repeat that a few times today.
Those are the facts.
Here's the maps.
Here's what a Democrat-controlled state has decided that they want to draw their maps for political advantage.
17 House of Representatives members from Illinois, 14 are Democrat.
Look how red the state is and look how they've snuck their Demetri, they've spoken their Democrats out into the other areas.
The very things they're criticizing us for doing with this map, they're doing it for their political advantage and they're watering down your voice.
Let's move to the southwest.
Look at New Mexico.
You had someone mention New Mexico earlier.
I think it was Senator Garton.
Three congressional seats in New Mexico.
Here's a map of the state.
You can see the congressional districts.
These green areas are Indian reservations that typically vote heavily Democrat.
And although they could easily be in one district, keep that community of interest together, they decided to maximize the political advantage and put some of them in all three districts.
Three to zero.
There's enough Republicans in New Mexico that they could easily get one seat and possibly two.
Sticking in the southwest, this map shows a little bit of Nevada.
The blue area that you see down here is Las Vegas.
They've drawn it into three different districts.
Nevada has four congressmen.
One is a Republican.
If they could have found a way to take that one away with skillful map drawing, they would have done it.
But they got the other three.
This is what they think of communities of interest.
By the way, President Trump won that state by three points, but three-fourths of their congressional district is Democrat.
I want to see us on the Republican side fight as hard for our side as they do for theirs.
I commend you all.
You fight like street fighters.
Let's move from the southwest up to the Pacific Northwest here.
This is a map of Oregon.
They have six members in the House of Representatives.
This blue area right here, this is Portland, drawn into four different districts.
Does it sound familiar?
Four different districts.
Look at all that red.
Oregon is five to one.
They're so frustrated in Oregon that the counties in the west won out.
They voted in referendums, let us out and let us join Idaho.
We hear about nonpartisan redistricting commissions.
I submit to you, there is no such thing.
Whether someone is an elected official or just an average constituent, we are partisan.
We are partisan by nature.
So, California, I may have my numbers wrong here on California.
I believe they have 52 congressional seats, and eight of them are Republican, despite large areas of that state that are densely populated with Republicans.
They only have eight.
That's a trap.
So, they decided: you know what?
Since the Republicans have decided to fight back, finally, in Texas, in Missouri, we better do something.
Let's get rid of our nonpartisan redistricting commission because they didn't do a good enough job.
We think we can get it down to where there's only three Republicans out of 52.
Are you kidding me?
Come on, guys.
Let's stand up and fight for our side the way they do for theirs.
It's probably hard to see from your seat.
Feel free to walk up if you'd like to look at it.
Senator Garton mentioned it a minute ago.
This is the map that Indiana Democrats drew in 2001 when they had control of the House and the governor's office.
Doesn't look that much different than our map, does it?
They had the opportunity to draw a map for political and failed so miserably that Republicans dominate county after county.
Somewhere around 85 or 90 percent of the local offices are Republican.
They hurt the very people that they claim into three congressional districts.
And many of the, I don't know the geography as well as some of our Indianapolis reps do as far as the included and excluded towns in UNIGOV, but several of them were split up.
This is what they do when they have power.
Now we've won the election.
The voters have said, hey, Republicans, go help us.
But do we have the will to do it?
They did.
Let me tell you something.
I think, in addition to all of this, where Democrats have used political advantage in map drawing, I think they've declared war on us.
They don't want to lose power again.
President Trump in his first term said, hey, we're not going to count illegals in the census.
They took him to court, they drag it out, they drag it out.
He appealed the initial ruling.
Look like we had a good chance of winning that.
And then Biden became president and basically dropped the suit.
So we have not only skillful map drawing by Democrats and states that they control, but we also have, in most cases, those illegals are populating blue states.
So the total number of representatives they have is overstated by that.
It's also overstated, as Senator Young mentioned the other day.
It's overstated by errors that the Census Bureau themselves has admitted where they overpopulated, overcounted in blue states.
I submit to you that it is a miracle that we have a five-seat majority in the United States House of Representatives right now.
The deck was easily stacked against us 20 to 25 seats, and somehow, somehow, we were still able, in spite of all that, to win a five-seat majority.
You look at when they took control of Congress in 2020, they used another tool.
In blue states, unsolicited absentee ballots were mailed to everyone on the voter rolls.
You look at the vote numbers.
If you look at the total number of people that cast ballots in federal elections, there's a humongous blip from 2020.
These guys, I submit to you, have started a political war and they intend to win.
Do you have the will to fight back?
You may not like the war analogies.
I apologize if it offends anybody, but let me tell you, we've heard them talk about if you can't win your election on the merit of your ideals, you don't deserve to hold office.
Look what the voters of Indiana have told the Democrat Party in recent years.
But they're determined to win anyway.
Do you have the will to stand in the gap and fight back?
I'll submit to you even further.
I'll double down on the war analogy.
I'm going to submit to you that the second U.S. Civil War has already started.
They're just fighting it with surrogates.
They've used every advantage to try to win, and somehow the people, as President Trump said, we're going to turn out a base to make it too big to rig.
And we did that in 2024.
But they're not going to quit.
Now, if you're offended by the war analogy and the statement that the second U.S. Civil War has already begun, let's look just a little west to our neighbors in Illinois.
Can you believe that armed thugs boxed in our U.S. border agents and our immigration officials, boxed them in and opened fire on them?
And the dispatch in Chicago told the officers not to respond.
So I submit to you that my statement that the U.S. Second U.S. Civil War has already begun, I submit to you that that's accurate.
If you support law enforcement, how can you not step up and give them the help that they need?
You know what a Democrat Congress will do for our law enforcement.
The elections do have consequences.
Decisions that we make here can help make sure that in a small way we can offset what the Democrats are doing in the rest of the country.
Now, part of what I was going to do in my close was to talk about all the things that a new Democrat Congress would do, but Senators Brown and Garton eloquently talked about that.
I'll just briefly say that the things we hear from the other side of the aisle about Hoosiers are concerned about real problems and affordability, inflation, and health care, and things like that.
Yeah, Hoosiers are concerned about that.
And the problems that we have in those areas are because of decisions that have been made in Washington under Democrat-controlled Congresses.
All right.
Several of us on this side have spoken that we're not going to support this, that they're not going to support it.
I love you anyway, and we're going to be friends.
We were friends before, we'll be friends during, we'll be friends after.
But I want to tell you, as I look back at history and look at where there have been wars, they've typically been political failures that have led to those wars.
And there were opportunities for the political establishment, whether elected or whether monarchies or whatever, there were opportunities for them to step in and fix the problem, and they didn't do it.
This is an opportunity for us to step in there and do something.
Now, I've also heard people say that redistricting is cheating.
Redistricting is not cheating.
Let me tell you what cheating is.
I grew up in Madison County.
We were dominated by Democrats, dominated by Democrats.
If we wanted to get elected, we had to try to go make a case to Democrat voters.
I made friends with a guy who was a Democrat, and he was starting to vote for a few Republicans, and someone told me to go see him.
And so I went and introduced myself.
I said, I heard that you might be willing to consider hosting my yard sign.
And this dude was a bigger country boy than me by far.
He's about 6'8, and his arms were as big as my legs.
So he said, you heard wrong, son.
And I said, the guy with me was like trying to drag me out of there before I got my tail whooped.
But I said, you know what?
I want to hear what you got to say.
Tell me what I've done in office that you don't like.
And I'm going to stand here and listen to it.
And if you'll allow me, I'll address it.
So I stood there and I listened, and I addressed the concerns.
And he had been fed a lot of misinformation.
And by the end of the conversation, he invited me back for donuts.
He gave me his sign location and started calling his friends.
As I became closer friends with him in later years, he said, you know, Mike, I used to be a hard Democrat.
And before that voter ID law, I would vote seven or eight times per election.
I had a list of people that were either out of state or deceased and not off the rolls that they knew wouldn't show up.
And I'm not proud of this, but I voted seven or eight times for the Democrat candidates.
So what it's going to come down to is: are you willing to stand up and give your side a chance?
Are you ready to stand up for policy?
Senator Baldwin so eloquently said a week or so ago: this is a policy decision.
Either you believe in our policies or you believe in theirs.
We need you to step up and do the right thing.
Some have said this might backfire for us politically.
We may end up with six to three if we redo these maps.
I'll tell you what.
You know the polling.
You know that our base supports this.
What's it going to do to turnout if we tell them that we're not going to stand up for them?
We've got an opportunity to either be church hills or chamberlains.
But things are headed in a bad way.
We've got a chance to solve it politically now.
If we don't, I don't know what's going to happen.
Some have said that President Trump is forcing this on us.
President Trump is not forcing this on us.
He's encouraging us to do the right thing, to stand up and fight.
You're talking to the man who tried to change things from 2016 to 2020, and they came after him.
It wasn't enough just to beat him in the election.
They raided his home.
They used law fare to try to sue him out of existence.
They came after him criminally and civilly, Senator Walker, both ways.
That man has taken a bullet, had a near-death experience, all to try to take the power of Washington and tame it down and send power back to the states.
If I lose my seat over this, I will walk away and be happy that I did the right thing.
President Trump almost lost his life, and Charlie Kirk did lose his life.
The rhetoric that we hear from the National Democrat Party is absolutely insane.
I know you guys don't support that, but they're riling up people to commit heinous acts.
We have to stop evil right now.
And yes, I use the word evil on purpose.
Evil prospers when good men do nothing and good women.
Please stand up and fight for your people the way they fight for theirs.
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you, Senator.
All right, this bill is now placed on its passage, and the machine is open for voting.
Senator Young, to explain his vote.
Senator Young to explain his vote.
Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate, real quick.
I've never had the opportunity to serve my country as some great Americans in here have, where they put their lives on the line for us.
I thought this opportunity would not just be for me, for all of us in this chamber.
Today, by this decision, we've told the Democrat Party, continue to redistrict as you're doing, take five more of our congressmen away, because we're going to step down and step back.
We're not going to play in the game that you play.
Five seats that on Wednesday morning that not only we did not do our job when we had the opportunity to serve our country, we've cost our nation.
We don't know how much, but we've cost our nation.
And then I tell you, I believe what Washington, D.C. says, whether it's right or whether it's wrong.
And Senator Mischler, this is going to be important to you, all of us.
When they take away all the money that they can take away from this state and not give it to us, our citizens will be harmed.
Our duty is not to be here to harm our citizens.
Our duty is to be here to help our citizens.
And if we don't get that money, especially the block grant education money, we will be harmed.
Now, the next thing, the final thing, I love you guys here.
There's nobody I dislike.
Some of my best people are not even conservative.
Vanita M. Becker and I started out over in the House.
She's completely opposite of what I believe in, but she's my friend.
And we talk well together, as all of you.
I know what's about to happen to some of my friends in this chamber.
You can believe it or not, you can believe it or not, but when they come into your districts, and I'm not lying, with two to three million dollars, I know you'll dry your best, you'll do what you can, but I believe in the end, most of you won't be here anymore.
And that takes courage to give up your seat when you don't want to help, or I take that back, when you have an opportunity to help your country.
So, God bless the United States of America.
Thank you, Senator.
All right, the machine is now closed.
Clerk will tally the roll.
19 ayes, 31 knows.
This bill has been defeated.
No, please stay quiet in the gallery.
Thank you.
All right, do we have author motions?
Is there consent to take these in one motion?
All right, all those in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed, no.
Motions pass.
All right, is there any other further business?
Is there other further business to come before the Senate?
Is there any other further business to come before the Senate?
Senator Bray is recognized for a motion to adjourn.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Members of the Senate.
This time I move the Senate to adjourn until Monday, January the 5th, 2026, at 1:30 p.m.
All right, the question is on the adoption of the motion.
All in favor say aye.
Opposed, no?
Motion passes.
Senators adjourned until Monday, January 5th, 1:30 p.m.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series.
Today, with our guest best-selling author, Arthur Brooks, who has written 13 books about finding purpose, connection, and cultivating lasting joy.
His books include Love Your Enemies, Build the Life You Want with co-author Oprah Winfrey and his latest The Happiness Files.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader, David Rubinstein.
This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom.
unidentified
The Senate has voted to advance the 2026 Defense Programs and Policy Bill, also known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.
Among the provisions of the bill allowing increased military flights at Reagan National Airport outside of Washington, D.C., where a military helicopter collided with a civilian passenger jet earlier this year.
The day before that Senate vote, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homindy held a news conference.
She said her agency opposes the military flight section of the NDAA, explaining that the bill would reverse changes implemented by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy following the January 29th mid-air collision at Reagan.