One Republican lawmaker in a deep-red state is now publicly voicing his opposition to President Donald Trump's push to aggressively redraw congressional district maps ahead of next year's midterm elections.
In a series of posts to his X account on Wednesday, Lafayette, Indiana-based journalist Dave Bangert reported that Indiana state senator Spencer Deery (R) is now vocally against redrawing the Hoosier State's congressional boundaries in order to squeeze out more Republican seats in the House of Representatives. Deery asserted that the redistricting process should only be done once a decade after each new Census.
"]W]hat we are being asked to do goes far beyond the partisan map fights that happen every 10 years across the country," Deery told Bangert. "Rationalizing a mid-cycle redistricting by saying, 'Democrats gerrymander too' is an empty and irrelevant excuse."
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"Instead, we are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade — but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election," he added.
Deery's comments come on the heels of other Republicans who have similarly criticized Trump's controversial push to redraw congressional maps five years ahead of the next Census. This includes former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R), who has long been a fixture of Republican politics in the Hoosier State. Even after Vice President JD Vance visited the state to push for new maps, Daniels criticized the effort as a "partisan wrangle" and added: "People have a right to pick the person they want."
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R), who is a former U.S. senator, also criticized Trump's call for new maps ahead of the midterms. In an August interview with local ABC affiliate WMUR, Ayotte argued that new congressional boundaries were not a top priority for Granite Staters and advocated for the current maps to remain in place until the next Census.
The likeliest state to impose new congressional maps in the middle of the decade is Texas, where Trump has proposed redrawing maps to create five new Republican seats. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has threatened to call a new special session after Democratic lawmakers fled the Lone Star State to deny quorum the Republican-dominated legislature required to hold a vote on the new maps.
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