House OKs redistricting change

Bipartisan commission would draw maps beginning in 2011

By Mary Beth Schneider
mary.beth.schneider@indystar.com
The Indianapolis Star

The interests of voters, not politicians, would be the deciding factor when legislative districts are mapped in the future under a bill passed Thursday by the Indiana House.

House Bill 1009, which creates a bipartisan commission to draw House and Senate maps beginning in 2011, passed the House 54-43, with three Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the measure.

The bill was one of many passed Thursday as lawmakers worked late into the night, including one tightening restrictions on government's ability to seize private property under eminent domain.

But House Speaker Brian C. Bosma, R-Indianapolis, told lawmakers nothing they do this session will have greater long-term impact on the state than reforming the way legislative districts are drawn.

"There is little this body does that's more important than drawing legislative maps," he said.

He and other lawmakers said the maps drawn by both parties in the past were designed to protect political power rather than to provide fair representation in logically shaped districts.

"When you look at the bizarre shape of the districts, you can see just how stilted the process is," Bosma said.

Under the bill, the four Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate would each appoint one person to a commission. The chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court would appoint the commission's fifth member, who would serve as chairman.

The commission would be required to draw maps that are compact, with about the same number of people in each and respecting federal requirements to maintain minority voting strength.

In doing its job, the commission would not to allowed to factor in how people in various districts voted in previous elections. Nor would the commission be allowed to use any other political data that would allow it to predict whether any district was reliably Democratic or Republican.

State Rep. Gerald R. Torr, a Carmel Republican who authored the bill, said politics have driven the process in the past.

"They (district lines) are drawn so our friends come back and our enemies don't," he said. "(It's) political gerrymandering, let's face it."

Rep. John D. Ulmer, R-Goshen, agreed it was time for that to end. "We need to restore the faith in the political system that not everything is politics."

Democrats, though, raised questions about the bill's constitutionality.

Rep. Ed Mahern, the Indianapolis Democrat who was the chief architect of the House maps in 2001, said the constitution requires the legislature to determine districts, not a commission.

He also said it raised constitutional problems to have the chief justice appoint the chairman of a commission whose maps -- if approved by the legislature -- could wind up in a court challenge before the court.

House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, called the issue "a waste of time."

Whichever party wins control of the House or Senate in 2010, he said, will want to draw the maps and will simply repeal the commission.

"You know it. I know it," he said.

Torr conceded the bill faced an "uphill" path in the Senate, where Senate President Pro Tempore Robert D. Garton, R-Columbus, has expressed reservations.

But, he said, "this is not over until midnight March 14th," when the legislature by law must conclude its session.

In other action, the House:

Voted 97-0 to pass a bill making it harder, and more expensive, for government to take private property in order to benefit another private individual or firm.

Though the vote on House Bill 1010 was unanimous, Democrats criticized the fact that the state Transportation Department was exempt from the legislation, especially given Gov. Mitch Daniels' plan to lease the Indiana Toll Road and, potentially, other highways to private firms.

Voted 73-23 to approve House Bill 1362 which lets local governments merge without legislative approval, and also allows local citizens to instigate those mergers through a petition process.

"It enables them to do whatever they choose and we (in the legislature) are removed from that process once and for all," said Rep. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo.

But while Democratic Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson has been pushing to merge the city and township fire departments in Marion County, most Indianapolis Democrats in the House voted against the measure.

Rep. Ed Mahern, D-Indianapolis, said the bill actually hurts Peterson's efforts, by requiring referendums be held in each township before the merger could take place. And, he said, while Republicans are voting for a measure that says the legislature shouldn't be able to veto local government mergers, they are blocking Peterson's plan by not giving it a hearing.

Call Star reporter Mary Beth Schneider at (317) 444-2772.