A redistricting plan in Indiana has gone down in flames in what could be a blow to GOP plans for a continuing majority in Congress.
Fox News reports President Donald Trump has been urging redistricting plans to GOP-majority states, to take advantage of a scheme Democrats long have used: gerrymandering to claim as many seats in Congress as possible.
On Thursday the state Senate voted down a new map endorsed by Trump that would have created two more right-leaning congressional districts in the solidly red Midwestern state, the report said.
Republicans already hold seven of the state’s nine House seats, and the plan would have eliminated the districts held by Democrats Frank Mrvan and Andre Carson.
The decision came down as the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the path for the GOP in Texas to use its new map, which provides for five more right-leaning House seats. In response, California voters decided to bypass a redistricting commission and give Democrats a couple more seats there, in a state that already has heavily overweighted toward Democrats.
Several other states have worked on redistricting, sometimes to help the GOP, other times to punish the Republicans. In addition to Texas, Missouri, North Carolina already have redrawn maps at the urging of the president.
Similar work as just begun in Florida, and a plan is under consideration in Kansas.
The Indiana plan already had been adopted by the state House, 57-41. The Senate vote against redistricting was 31-19, with 21 Republicans joining Democrats in killing the updated representation plan.
Other Democrat-led states, Illinois, Maryland and Virginia, are considering plans.
