Article
Federal Court Rules that Anderson City Council Must Draw Fair Maps
A federal judge has ruled that the Anderson, Indiana City Council’s failure to draw fair council maps violates the U.S. Constitution, and fair maps must be drawn.
Campaign
Ending Gerrymandering in Indiana
Common Cause Indiana is leading the fight for fair redistricting in Indiana. We support legislation to create a people's redistricting commission in Indiana and establish nonpartisan redistricting standards.
Since 2015, the All IN for Democracy coalition has led the fight in Indiana for fair maps. In 2021, our model redistricting commission, the Indiana Citizens Redistricting Commission, demonstrated how redistricting should be done: by a multi-partisan and diverse group of Hoosiers with no direct interest in the outcome. The public mapping competition we sponsored showed that Hoosiers are quite capable of drawing new districts free of partisan bias and while respecting communities of interest.
Unfortunately the political environment inside Congress and the Indiana State House makes redistricting reform at the federal and state reform unlikely at present. While we continue to work in coalition for state level reform, we’re currently focusing on building support to enact local ordinances to create people’s redistricting commissions for city councils and county commissions, like Bloomington, Goshen, and Monroe County have passed.
Want to help get one passed in your community? Contact Julia Vaughn at jvaughn@commoncause.org. and we’ll help you get started.
Local Redistricting Litigation
In June of 2023, Common Cause Indiana, the League of Women Voters of Indiana and the Madison County branch of the NAACP sued the Anderson City Council for their failure to redistrict after the 2020 census. Because of the Council’s failure to redistrict, their current Council districts are significantly malapportioned. While we had hoped that the Council would be willing to quickly settle this case by agreeing to draw new maps, they have mounted an expensive and illogical fight against our attempt to ensure that all Anderson residents have an equal vote in city council elections.