Draw districts that respect communities of interest

Written by
Dave Crooks and Bill Ruppel


When the Indiana General Assembly last drew maps for congressional and state legislative districts in 2001, the public had limited opportunities to impact the process. Legislative mapmakers held a few sparsely attended public hearings and a computer was available at the State Library in Indianapolis if people wanted to try their hand at map drawing with a more limited data set than lawmakers had access to.

For the most part, redistricting was carried out behind closed doors under a curtain of fierce incumbent protection and intense partisanship.
The result has been a decade of elections where the majority of races are decided not by voters but by where the district lines fall. Half of the current state legislative districts favor one party by more than 30 percent. This has led to 40 percent of candidates for the General Assembly running without major party opposition. It is no wonder that voters are frustrated with such limited choices.

As former state legislators, we have seen redistricting firsthand and can testify that partisan interests greatly outweigh any other principle.
Forget compact districts that respect communities of interest and encourage competition; it's all about making sure the majority party keeps its edge and current lawmakers keep the voters they want and get rid of those they cannot count on. It is the ultimate conflict of interest, and it is time for a change.
The good news is that several statewide citizens groups are not waiting on the General Assembly to reform redistricting. AARP Indiana, Common Cause/Indiana and the League of Women Voters of Indiana are forming the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission that will bird dog the legislative redistricting process, hold public hearings across the state to generate public discussion and sponsor a map-drawing competition. We are proud to serve as co-chairs of the commission.


The ICRC will be composed of Hoosiers who are representative of the voters in our state. They will come from communities across Indiana and include racial and ethnic minorities and a variety of political ideologies. The one thing they have in common is a desire for a map-drawing process that is less dominated by partisan interests and that results in fair districts that respect the Voting Rights Act and promote accountability and competitive elections.

The ICRC will monitor the legislative redistricting process by analyzing the maps proposed by the Indiana House and Senate and draw attention to those districts we believe are gerrymandered. But, the ICRC won't just point the finger at the districts drawn to gain political advantage. We will sponsor a map drawing competition to provide a yardstick to see how the legislature's maps compare to those drawn by neutral parties.

We will make available to any interested citizen District Builder, an open-source software redistricting application designed to give the public transparent, accessible and easy-to-use online mapping tools. Citizens will submit their proposals to the ICRC where they will be judged according to how well they meet criteria such as compactness, competitiveness and incorporation of communities of interest. We will pick the best set of maps and submit them to the General Assembly.

While the Citizens Commission won't have any official role in the process, we believe it will provide a new level of transparency and public participation that can pressure the General Assembly to put the interests of citizens above their own. And it will demonstrate how an independent redistricting commission would work, making passage of legislation to create such a commission more likely.

Hoosiers have the tools to make the next set of legislative maps more equitable and less partisan. Working together, we can draw the line on gerrymandering. For more information about the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission see www.commoncause.org/in