A few evenings ago, I introduced a Zoom meeting sponsored by ReCenter Indiana. It was focused upon the very negative effects of our legislative super-majority. Democrats have identified four districts in Indiana that–should they all go Blue in November–would reduce the current super-majority to a simple majority. My job was to begin the session with an explanation of how a legislative super-majority advances extremism and stifles democratic deliberation.
Here are those introductory remarks.
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Let me begin this discussion by connecting some dots. Hoosier voters need to understand how partisan redistricting—usually referred to as gerrymandering–has given Indiana its legislative super-majority, and how that super-majority has given us increasingly extreme legislation: a virtually-complete abortion ban, education vouchers that are starving our public schools, gun laws that allow anyone who can fog a mirror to possess a lethal weapon– basically, a focus on culture war at the expense of attention to actual governance.
It’s a vicious circle, because in Indiana, the GOP’s legislative super-majority also allows the party to continue the extreme gerrymandering that has made Indiana one of the five most gerrymandered states in the country.
Gerrymandering has all sorts of undemocratic consequences, one of which is voter suppression. In districts perceived as “safe,” people who favor the “loser” party tend to stay home. That’s one reason why Indiana ranks 50th among the states in turnout. (Interestingly, due to Indiana’s population shifts, a number of those theoretically “safe” districts wouldn’t currently be safe if discouraged folks came out and voted. Those demographic shifts are one of the reasons there’s a chance this year to break the current GOP supermajority.)
Indiana is an excellent example of how the gerrymandering that leads to legislative super-majorities has a profound and very negative impact on policy.
We know that primaries attract the most ideologically extreme voters in either party. When the primary is, in effect, the general election, Republican incumbents protect their right flank, Democrats their left. In Indiana, which has been gerrymandered to produce more Republican districts, that reality has steadily moved us farther and farther Right. Today’s “culture warriors” win office in order to focus on issues like banning abortion, waging war on trans children, and removing common-sense restrictions on gun ownership. And it’s getting worse–there are indications that during the next session we’ll see the introduction of anti-vaccine measures that—if passed–would threaten public health. (For reasons I fail to understand, opposition to vaccination has become a preoccupation of what I’ll call the “Micah Beckwith wing” of the GOP.)
These are the pet issues of extremists, rather than the issues that most Hoosiers care about and that we traditionally consider governmental: roads and bridges and other infrastructure, crime and punishment, economic development.
Thanks to the gerrymandering that has given Republicans a super-majority, these extremist legislators face virtually no barriers to enacting measures that research tells us are deeply unpopular with most Hoosiers. Members of a super-majority don’t face pressure to negotiate, or to moderate the most extreme versions of their extreme positions.
A party with a super-majority also faces no obstacles to rewarding its donors and supporters; in Indiana, that has given us policies that almost uniformly favor the well-to-do. It has defeated even the most minimal efforts to protect renters. It has given us privatization programs like vouchers, in which our tax dollars are used almost exclusively by the well-to-do while impoverishing the public schools that serve poorer children, and it has given us what is arguably an unconstitutional effort to protect gun manufacturers from litigation.
That super-majority has also blocked more stringent ethics measures.
Any super-majority—Republican or Democrat—gives those in power the ability to ignore contending arguments, unpalatable data and the needs of Hoosiers likely to vote for the opposing party. They don’t need to negotiate or compromise. They don’t even need to look like they’re negotiating or compromising.
Indiana can’t get rid of the gerrymandering that makes our legislature’s extremism possible—we lack a referendum or initiative, mechanisms that have been used by other states to institute nonpartisan redistricting. In this state, only the legislature itself—only the people who benefit from the system—can change it. The only way Indiana will get rid of the gerrymandering that allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around would be Congress passing the John Lewis act, which (among other very positive things) would make gerrymandering illegal nationally.
Since the GOP benefits from America’s gerrymandering far more than the Democrats do, passing the John Lewis Act would probably require a Democratic trifecta: a Democratic House and Senate to pass it and a Democratic President to sign it.
Until that happens, if it ever does, Indiana’s Republican gerrymandering is likely to continue giving Hoosiers a Republican legislative majority. But we do have a chance this year to defeat the super-majority, and to slow down our state’s march toward culture-war extremism. One reason is the shifting demography that I previously mentioned. Another is that the GOP has moved so far toward a very unconservative extremism that its candidates are turning off voters who previously voted Republican.
Those realities give four candidates in particular a better-than-usual chance to win their districts:
• Josh Lowry, District 24;
• Tiffany Stoner, District 25;
• Victoria Garcia Wilburn, District 32 (incumbent); and
• Matt McNally, District 39.
We’ll now hear from each of them.
“Since the GOP benefits from America’s gerrymandering far more than the Democrats do, passing the John Lewis Act would probably require a Democratic trifecta: a Democratic House and Senate to pass it and a Democratic President to sign it.”
The effects of gerrymandering reaches all the way from local to state levels to the federal level and our rights, as provided by the Constitution of the United States of America, can be bartered back and forth between parties. Whichever party is in effect at any level, the penises rule the vaginas is the general rule. Does Indiana gerrymandering take into consideration a way to determine the vast numbers of single women raising the children and the numbers of public schools in their areas? Statistics show the majority of these single women raising children are women of color. It will take a few decades before we can begin seeing the results of today’s gerrymandering and the voucher system “educating” our future leaders via creationism. We will also have to wait to see the numbers of women and men of color in leadership positions at all levels of government.
“The only way Indiana will get rid of the gerrymandering that allows legislators to choose their voters rather than the other way around would be Congress passing the John Lewis act, which (among other very positive things) would make gerrymandering illegal nationally.”
In Indiana and America we must ask the question; how much of the denial of passing the John Lewis act is based in racism?
I wasn’t familiar with the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, but with some research found that the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act was written in response to the Shelby County v. Holder, June 2013, Supreme Court invalidation of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Among the invalidated provisions was an enforcement mechanism that prevented states from making changes to voting laws and practices if they have a history of voting discrimination, unless they clear those changes through federal officials.
I found the Act was reintroduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 14 by Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL-07) on September 19, 2023, and in the Senate as S. 4 by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) on February 2, 2024.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/voting-rights-advancement-act
https://civilrights.org/resource/support-h-r-4-john-lewis-voting-rights-advancement-act/
I was on that zoom meeting. A lot of positive things were addressed. There are aspects that need to be addressed (if we get past this election cycle with our republic intact), else we’ll end up back at the same place. 1) Both major political parties have gerrymandered when they can. 2) The Indiana Democratic Party operates on the premise that Indiana is a “conservative State.” That means a) The party cedes the magaGOP half the distance to the end zone. b) The party lets an Evan Bayh shove aside a Baron Hill (U.S. Senate) or puts a John Gregg (“I have a moustache”) at the top of the ticket and relegates a Christina Hale to Lt Gov nominee. c) When actual issues are discussed (e.g., negotiate drug prices, remove entities that only add overhead to the system) people are receptive, but many refuse even to listen once they hear buzz phrases (e.g., socialized medicine). When Hoosiers are told “you’re conservative,” many follow. When Hoosiers hear issues explained, the State is largely progressive. Indiana had two progressive Senators for 14 years. (Vance Hartke, 1958-1976 and Birch Bayh, 1962-1980, with both in office 1962-76.) It used to be said that the real decisions of the General Assembly were made in rooms at The Columbia Club or the Indianapolis Athletic Club, depending upon what party held the majority. The IAC is gone. If we avert disaster this November, it will be damn difficult to rally people in the next crisis when all that happens is what has happened before.
Something else I did not know about the effects of breaking the super-majority is that they will not be able to conduct business without Democrats in the room; in other words, no more closed-door meetings with a Democrat present, and there will be more Dems on committees.
In addition to the four candidates listed above, there are some excellent people running for office that deserve and need our support.
Carey Hamilton (incumbent, District 87)
John Bartlett (District 33)
Michael Potter (District 47)
Thomas Horrocks (District 62, lost by just 73 votes last time)
Michelle Higgs (District 60, the founder of the Indiana Rural Alliance)
These candidates represent real change in Indiana. Support them with donations that you can afford. The GOP has a lot of money but very bad ideas and candidates and can be beat this year. GOTV!
I have to admit that I have no idea how we evolved into a two-party system, but that is not as important as its potential consequences today. The risks to our republic today have already occurred twice, once leading to the Civil War, and now in either blue or red single-party states. Under certain conditions, two parties become one. Like the failure of communism in several countries, a single unopposed party, following Lord Acton’s famous observation about humans linking power and corruption, morphs into authoritarian.
Once that happens, it can be virtually impossible to pull democracy from the wreckage.
The Indiana Democratic Party needs to put on their collective “big boy pants” and start fighting for something. In my experience, they don’t try to do much. I still haven’t seen a single ad to defeat Mike Braun. I think we’re well beyond the time that we could assume they’re holding back for a strategic spend that closes the election gap. They’re clearly planning to roll over and give up. Doesn’t seem like a great plan. It may be time to replace the whole D structure in Indiana. Whatever they do, it doesn’t seem to be much.
Lord Acton was correct, Pete. And so was Marx, who predicted capitalism’s corruption would lead to Fascism…voila!
My only potential correction to Sheila’s post is that primaries in 2024 consist of both parties protecting their Left flanks. MAGA Republicans rule in 2024.
However, the good news for the world is Trump admitted this week that he will not run for another election if he loses in November. Does that mean the GOP will return to sanity? I can’t imagine that will happen overnight since the MAGATs will be resentful over another loss and blame the Satanic Democrats for cheating.
I’m not spending much time on X because Elon has manipulated the algorithm to place his posts at the top of everybody’s news feed, pumping out nothing but misinformation in favor of Trump. It’s become nauseating at this point. What I fail to understand is that Trump has offered Musk a position in his administration. His position is that of a “government efficiency expert.” [eye roll]
Come on, America, the Democratic Party needs a clean sweep from top to bottom of the ballot to push the MAGATs off their cliff.
Everywhere I look, I find people who are completely clueless about what is happening today. They have been fed the entire MAGAT agenda, without any interference from Earth One.
I’m going to lay the blame where it rightly belongs. It’s the algorithms, friends. They constantly send the user the junk that they slurp up like a dog slurps water. They are constantly being inundated with “alternative facts”, and never see or hear anything that detracts from their view.
Maybe it’s time to require the purveyors of those algorithms to also tag the algorithms with links to facts
More power to you!
As noted by Sheila above, the other way to mitigate the effects of present Indiana gerrymandering is to elect more Democrats to the legislature. The first step is to elect enough Democrats to eliminate the present supermajorities. At the recent meeting of the Washington Township Democratic Club, the rallying cry was to end the supermajorities. At that meeting, we were fortunate to hear from impressive state House candidates who have good chances to win.
Three of those listed by Sheila were there. They were:
• Josh Lowry, District 24;
• Victoria Garcia Wilburn, District 32 (incumbent); and
• Matt McNally, District 39.
They all need support. So instead of complaining that “the Democrats” aren’t doing enough, be one and do something.