Indiana House District 35 sprawls across four counties, including Madison, ranging 40 miles from the middle of Delaware County in the east all the way to the middle of Tipton and Hamilton counties in the west.
Smack in the middle of District 35, another district, 36, is carved out, leaving a gaping hole for Anderson and surrounding countryside. And at the eastern boundary of District 35, a bite is missing for yet another district, 34, that covers Muncie.
District 35, and really much of the entire Indiana House and Senate district maps, looks like something created in the throes of insanity. The maps call to mind a Rorschach test.
What do Hoosiers see when they look at these maps?
Politics. Not good government.
Last summer, a group of well-intentioned state lawmakers got together in a committee to draft a proposal for the creation of a nonpartisan commission to redistrict Indiana's state legislative and congressional districts. Many Republicans, including governor-to-be Eric Holcomb, agreed that such a commission is needed to remove politics — and insert common sense — into Indiana's redistricting.
By constitutional practice, at the turn of every decade districts are redrawn to reflect changing demographics. The idea, supposedly, is to create districts that have regular boundaries that are easy to understand and group together voters with common geography.
Instead, politicians in control of the Legislature, tasked with redistricting, have tortured the map to congeal political power and all but assure their own re-elections. They've been very successful. A high percentage of incumbents, particularly those from the party in power, get repeatedly reelected.
Voter frustration and lack of familiarity with their districts is a contributing factor in Indiana's voter turnout, which is routinely among the lowest in the nation. It also leads to uncontested races, because candidates from outside the incumbent's party know the deck is stacked against them. Forty-four of Indiana's 100 state House districts were uncontested in the 2014 general election.
What will it take to bring Indiana into modern times and the use of a nonpartisan redistricting committee? A critical mass of courageous lawmakers from the party in power determined to do the right thing by voters, rather than taking the selfish path.
That's unlikely to happen during the current session of the General Assembly. Indiana House Elections Committee Chairman Milo Smith, R-Columbus, said last week the current legislative proposal to create a nonpartisan redistricting committee has flaws. Meanwhile, a bill introduced by Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, in the state Senate is unlikely to get a hearing.
So we're headed toward another politically-driven redistricting in 2020.
Shame on Holcomb for not pushing GOP lawmakers to let a redistricting bill go to a vote. And shame on state Republicans who simply don't have the backbone to do the right thing.