The Indiana Senate’s Republican supermajority had a choice Thursday. They could acquiesce to the White House’s demands that they approve a new congressional map and potentially turn the state’s entire House delegation red. Or they could listen to their constituents and consciences. As their sweeping 31-19 rejection of the new map showed, they chose well. This outcome was in no way a foregone conclusion. President Donald Trump had promised to back a primary challenger against any Indiana Republican lawmaker who vote against redistricting. Vice President JD Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Indiana Gov. Dan Braun were all recruited to work the phones, meet with lawmakers and threaten dire consequences for any Republican who defied Trump’s wishes. Outside groups spammed everyday Hoosiers hoping to persuade them to pressure their representatives to support a new map. And still a majority of the state senate’s Republican caucus voted no. The proposed gerrymandered map wasn’t even produced by state lawmakers or their staff. Trump has been lobbying GOP state lawmakers hard this year to gerrymander their congressional districts to shore up the fragile Republican majority in next year’s midterms. Republicans hold seven of Indiana’s nine seats in the U.S. House. The new map would have doomed the two Democratic-held seats by carving up Indianapolis among four districts and splitting another blue stronghold near Lake Michigan over two districts. The Indiana House voted last week 57-41 to support that aggressive gerrymander, but Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray had long made it clear to…
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