By Casey Smith and Tom Davies
Indiana Capital Chronicle
A congressional redistricting proposal that has split Indiana’s Senate Republicans advanced to its final stage Wednesday after lawmakers quickly dispatched three Democratic amendments and positioned the high-stakes bill for a decisive vote on Thursday.
But it remains unclear whether the Senate GOP caucus has enough support to pass the measure.
The chamber met for just 30 minutes with little of the marathon discussion that marked Monday’s six-hour committee hearing.
House Bill 1032 targets Indiana’s current two Democratic U.S. House members and is designed to create a 9-0 Republican map ahead of the 2026 midterm election — as demanded by President Donald Trump.
No Republican amendments were filed Wednesday, and all three Democratic proposals failed on voice votes.
The bill passed the Senate Elections Committee 6-3 earlier this week.
Sixteen GOP senators have publicly supported the bill; 14 have said they oppose it; and 10 — including several who supported advancing the bill out of committee — have not revealed how they plan to vote on the chamber floor.
Indiana’s Constitution requires a majority of the 50-member Senate to approve legislation, meaning the 40-seat Republican supermajority must muster at least 26 votes if all 10 Democrats vote no. GOP Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith can break a 25-25 tie if all members are present.
But not all senators have been at the Statehouse this week.
Several GOP senators were missing on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday, Republican Sens. Jim Buck, Scott Alexander and Ryan Mishler remained absent.
Sen. Linda Rogers, R-Granger, noted in committee Wednesday morning that Alexander recently had open-heart surgery and said he was “doing really well,” but Senate Republican staff could not confirm who would or would not be present for Thursday’s vote.
Uncertainty surrounds Thursday vote
The bill’s advancement follows a Monday committee vote where two Democrats and one Republican opposed the measure — although several Republicans who voted to move it to the floor said they could still vote no on final passage.
That included Sens. Greg Goode, Stacey Donato and Rogers. The three are among the 10 GOP lawmakers who have not publicly committed to mid-cycle redistricting.
Goode, R-Terre Haute, said after Wednesday’s Senate session that he remained undecided ahead of Thursday’s expected vote.
“I’m going to give it one more night to sleep on it, and then I want to hear one more time among my colleagues the arguments for and against,” he told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Goode said he has had two phone calls with Trump about redistricting, the most recent one on Monday and another call with White House officials Wednesday morning.
Goode described those calls as “very spirited advocacy,” but said he has “never felt threatened or pressured by the White House.”
At least a dozen legislators, many Senate Republicans — including Goode — have publicly disclosed being targeted in swatting attempts, bomb threats and more. The incidents have prompted an ongoing investigation now led by the Indiana State Police.
Sen. Mike Crider, R-Greenfield, said Wednesday he remained a firm opponent of the redistricting plan and that senators needed to resist such intimidation attempts.
“When you get kind of bullied and threatened, if that tactic works, then you can expect to deal with that for the rest of your political career,” Crider said after Wednesday’s Senate session. “This has been really kind of a discouraging thing that we’re experiencing this in Indiana. It’s not been our style in the past, and I’m hopeful that it’s not something we deal with in the future.”
Goode and Crider, who are both members of the budget-writing Senate Appropriations Committee, said they wouldn’t be swayed by arguments that the Trump administration could financially punish Indiana if the Senate doesn’t support the redrawn maps.
Goode said he believed the federal government would fulfill any obligations to the state.
“Now, can the administration potentially slow-walk something? Could a grant request or some type of line of funding take a little bit longer? Possibly,” Goode said. “But I have not, and I will not, make my final decision based on worrying of what could happen. That’s not the way, I think, we should govern.”
Crider said he expected Indiana’s congressional delegation to stand up to any financial threats.
“My opinion is that the spread on votes are so thin in Congress that if our federal delegation won’t stand together and say, ‘Leave Indiana alone,’ then they’re not doing their jobs,” Crider said. “I think that they have the ability to say, ‘If you’re going to hurt Indiana, then we’re not passing anything out of the House of Representatives until you stop that.’ That’s what I think should happen.”
Democrats keep amendments brief
The House approved the redistricting bill Friday, as expected, on a vote of 57-41. Twelve Republicans joined all Democrats present in opposition.
Gov. Mike Braun has stood by threats that he and Trump have made to support Republican primary challengers against senators who reject the new maps.
Wednesday’s floor debate in the Senate centered on three Democratic amendments, each defeated in a matter of minutes.
Outside the chamber, just a handful of protesters lingered in the hallway, and the usually crowded Senate balcony sat nearly empty — also a shift from the packed committee room on Monday.
An amendment offered by Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, would have deleted the bill entirely and replaced it with a prohibition on redrawing congressional districts except immediately after the decennial census.
Qaddoura has already filed similar substantive language for the 2026 session in Senate Bill 53.
“The amendment deletes the content of House Bill 1032 completely, A to Z, and it explicitly adds language to prohibit mid-cycle congressional redistricting, because that’s not what Hoosiers asked us to come and do during this session,” Qaddoura said. “Hoosiers did not send us here to do a mid-decade redistricting of congressional seats.”
Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Pendleton, the bill’s sponsor, urged colleagues to oppose what he called a “strip-and-insert” amendment.
Another amendment from Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, would have required counties to report costs related to implementing new maps and authorized the state comptroller to reimburse them.
Ford noted that clerks — particularly in Marion County — testified that implementing new congressional boundaries so close to the 2026 election cycle would require new materials, additional staff and overtime hours, and substantial public information efforts.
“These folks are likely to be saddled with extra costs … including updating ballots, hiring more temporary staff, moving the appropriate voters and conducting information campaigns,” Ford said. “At a time when Hoosier families are begging for relief … we should not be forcing local governments to spend scarce taxpayer dollars on political power grabs such as this.”
Gaskill, in opposition, maintained that the amendment “basically creates an appropriation,” which would make it procedurally out of order at this stage in the legislative process.
Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-East Chicago, offered a third amendment, which aimed to strike language that limits where and how lawsuits challenging the maps could be filed. The current draft of the bill would bar temporary restraining orders against the maps and route appeals directly to the Indiana Supreme Court.
Randolph called his proposal a “simple amendment,” arguing that trial courts should retain jurisdiction and that forcing precincts to straddle multiple congressional districts would create confusion for local precinct officials.
Gaskill urged the Senate to defeat that amendment, too. He defended the bill’s legal-challenge language as a way to avoid “chaos and confusion.”
“Often, throughout the country, chaos and confusion has been created with election-related lawsuits,” he said. “And this sets up a clear procedure … and gets them expeditiously to the Indiana Supreme Court. … I think that’s very important, regardless of which side of the redistricting issue you’re on.”
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The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to giving Hoosiers a comprehensive look inside state government, policy and elections. The site combines daily coverage with in-depth scrutiny, political awareness and insightful commentary.
