WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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A bill to create an independent commission to draw legislative districts is poised to die in committee without being voted on. The bill, coauthored by House speaker Brian Bosma, has support from both Republicans and Democrats in the House. But the bill’s progress has been halted by Representative Milo Smith, a Republican from Columbus. He chairs the House Elections Committee, and has refused to allow the committee to vote on the proposal.
Representative Ryan Hatfield, the ranking Democrat on the House Elections Committee, thinks it is unlikely that Smith will approve a vote before the deadline on Wednesday, commenting: “The committee meets on Wednesday, so the last chance we will have to hear this bill and send it out of committee will be this Wednesday, February 22nd. We currently don’t have a committee hearing planned. I have asked the chairman of the committee to call a meeting and hear the bill and at least allow a vote on the bill. He has yet to do that, and I don’t know if we can expect a committee hearing on Wednesday.”
The bill lost momentum last week when Representative Smith told constituents at a town hall meeting that he had concerns about the bill. Smith said the bill would waste legislators’ time by requiring two different votes on whether to adopt the commission’s proposals, and he wasn’t clear on what would happen if those votes failed. The redistricting commission would not be entirely independent, but would be partially bipartisan.
Representative Hatfield explains how the commission would be staffed: “The committee, at worst, is bipartisan in their efforts. Four of the nine members are picked by the leadership- One from the Speaker, one from the Minority Leader, both from the House of Representatives; One from the president pro-tem of the Senate, and one from the Minority Leader of the Senate. An additional 4 members are picked from a pool of 12; which is nominated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the president of Ball State, the president of Indiana University, and the president of Purdue University. Once that pool of 12 is picked and the 4 existing members from the political appointments choose those 4 members, we have 8. Then those 8 members would choose a chairperson.”
Final approval would require seven votes, out of nine on the commission. Redistricting reform has support from several groups around the state, including the League of Women Voters and Common Cause Indiana. Representative Hatfield said that in recent weeks, his office had received more calls about redistricting than any other issue. Legislative districts are redrawn every ten years, following the national census. Indiana’s next round of redistricting is scheduled for 2021.
