Redistricting efforts move forward slowly
INDIANAPOLIS – Bills in the Senate defining how legislative and congressional districts are redrawn in Indiana and establishing a redistricting committee passed out of the full Senate Thursday and now move on to the Indiana House of Representatives for consideration.
Both the House and the Senate had bills that deal with redistricting. While bills have passed through the legislative process in the Senate, the House bills pertaining to redistricting failed to be put on the calendar for a hearing in the Rules and Legislative Procedures committee. Thursday was the last day to hear committee reports in both chambers, ending chances of redistricting legislation to be heard in the House for 2010.
SB 80, sponsored by Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, establishes instructions on how new legislative and congressional districts should be drawn for Indiana.
The bill passed through the Senate, 47-1.
SB 136, sponsored by Sen. Sue Landske, R-Cedar Lake, and Lawson, establishes a redistricting commission which calls for four members appointed by the Senate president pro tempore, four members appointed by the House speaker, eight independent members from outside the immediate political process and Indiana Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard to serve as chair of the committee.
The bill passed through the Senate, 45-3.
Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes, and Rep. Kathy Richardson, R-Noblesville, were named as the House sponsors for both bills.
Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, sponsored House Bill 1013, a bill that dealt with the creation of a redistricting commission, which never received a hearing this year.
“You’d have to ask the speaker, but my assumption is that anything that has to do with anything other than the gerrymandering process we have now is going to be dead according to the speaker’s view,” said Torr.
Lawson said the Senate had a different environment.
“We are used to working in a bi-partisan way. This could be a little more political than what I really want it to be,” said Lawson. “We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Battles said that the issue was timing.
“This is the first opportunity we’ve had [to look at redistricting],” said Battles.
Battles also said the bills have not been assigned to committees in the House at this time.
