This is a lightly edited transcript of the December 8 edition of Right Now With Perry Bacon. You can watch the video here or by following this show on YouTube or Substack.
Perry Bacon: I’m Perry Bacon. I’m the host of The New Republic show Right Now. I’m joined by Andrea Hunley. She’s a state senator in the great state of Indiana. I’m in Louisville, so very close by to us. Great football team, in case you have not heard—really doing well there, great season. But we’re here to talk about maybe less positive news, at least from my point of view, which is that Indiana is one of the states where President Trump has mandated that the legislature gerrymander and redistrict.
Indiana currently has two of its nine members of the House who are Democrats. It’s a Republican state, but two of nine is significant compared to what they’re trying to push for, which is to redraw the maps so that all nine members would be Republicans. And last week, the Indiana House passed a proposal that would change the districts and draw the maps. It’s now being sent to the Senate. Andrea is in the Senate, so we’re going to talk about the Senate process. Unfortunately, only 10 of the 50 members are Democrats in the Indiana Senate, so you’ll need some Republicans to join this cause.
But there are some Republicans in the Indiana State Senate who are wary of Trump and wary of redrawing the map. So let’s talk about this a little bit. Welcome. Thanks for coming.
State Senator Andrea Hunley: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here, and I hate to start with a correction, but Perry, I’ve got to give you one right off the top, which is that Indiana is not a Republican state.
We really are much more purple than people give us credit for. And in fact, in 2008, we went for Obama, but about 54 percent Republicans voted in our last election for the governor. And so that shows you that we really are a much more split and independent state than folks give us credit for.
Bacon: So I remember a few weeks ago in November, it seemed like this redistricting idea might have died, and Pete Buttigieg was down there. It seemed like there was a victory—he was the secretary of state in Indiana for a while. What happened? How did this get back on the radar screen?
Hunley: Yes, it got back on the radar because we’ve gotten a lot of pressure from D.C. insiders who’ve been calling, who’ve been inviting folks out to the White House, and who’ve been putting a lot of pressure and, quite frankly, threatening Indiana to ensure that we heard this legislation.
And so last week it was heard in the House. And these gerrymandered, rigged maps passed out of the House, and now it’s up to us in the Senate to hold the line and really speak up for all Hoosiers—because, and that’s what we call ourselves here in Indiana, Hoosiers—because here in Indiana, folks, whether they’re Republican or Democrat or independent, they do not want these maps.
They do not want to bend a knee to D.C. insiders. They want us to stand up for what we believe in here in Indiana, which is that we run our state—those of us here in the state legislature and Hoosiers.
Bacon: Explain the map a little bit. So the map would be, so there’s the, there’s two Democrats in Indiana, one is in the Indianapolis area, and is one in the Gary area?
Is it the other one? Is it out generally?
Hunley: Correct. One is in Northwest Indiana, and then one is right here in the heart of Indianapolis—and the heart of my Senate district. So my state Senate district overlaps with the congressional district that has just been completely torn apart.
So I want you to imagine if I walk out of the door of our statehouse: I am in one district, and the moment that I cross the street, I would be in a completely new district. They have just taken apart Black neighborhoods and made sure that they are just gerrymandered in a way that you would go all the way from here in Indianapolis all the way down to the border of the state of Indiana and Kentucky.
And it’s really wild that we would have these districts that span two hours and that span urban core with rural Indiana, and that really is just diluting representation for everyone. But that’s the goal. I mean, and so that’s the goal that they want to achieve.
They’ve been unapologetic about it. If you listened to a session last week, then you would’ve heard the author of the bill say over and over again, Yeah, we’re doing this for political reasons. They’re not hiding it at all.
Bacon: Explain to people why it’s bad when a district is split up this way or when it’s two hours apart. I know why the Republicans are doing it, and I get why the Democrats on some level have to gerrymander. But explain why gerrymandering is bad if you’re an individual citizen in the United States.
Hunley: Well, so for one, we really want to keep like communities together, and the maps that we passed here in Indiana during our last redistricting, which we do once every 10 years, the maps that we passed last time actually got an A for keeping compact communities together.
So you want whole cities together, whole counties together, whole townships together. Well, this map here is splitting that apart so that we’ve got neighborhoods that are split apart, that we’ve got voting precincts that are split apart, we’ve got whole cities that are divided up. Indianapolis isn’t the only one. There are several other cities that are being just split apart. But we want to make sure that there’s holistic representation.
And if you are in—we’re a big agriculture state, 72 of our 92 counties are rural. So if you’re in a rural county, you want to make sure that your needs are being met, that folks are fighting hard for the farm bill, that they’re fighting hard for agriculture, that they’re fighting hard for the environment and water.
Here in Indianapolis, we have different needs, right? We’re the sixteenth-largest city in the entire country. We are a sports capital. We are a tourism capital. And so we have different needs than our folks in farmland. And if you’ve got folks with competing interests and competing needs, trying to fight for limited resources, it makes it really hard for anybody to have the representation that they need.
Bacon: For someone in your job—if you’re a member of Congress and your district is two hours apart and is very diverse in terms of farming and Indy 500 at the same time—it’s hard to do your job of representing people if the area is large and the needs are so diverse, right?
Hunley: Absolutely. I was talking to a gentleman from Fulton County, Indiana. And that is a small town. It’s got one main street, and they would be in the same district as Gary, Indiana, which is a large metropolis area—I mean, essentially like a suburb of Chicago, but on the Indiana side. And the gentleman from Fulton County said, “We’ll never see our congressional representative. We will never see our congressperson. They’ll never come here because they’re going to be too busy.” And that’s what this is about.
I mean, right now we’re in a place where you can pick up the phone and call your congressperson. You can stop into their office and talk to them. You can invite them to your cookout or two-year town parade, right? That’s the type of relationship that we have with our elected officials. And it just won’t be that way if we have these rigged maps.
But the maps really are just a distraction from the real issue, which is the fact that what they’re looking for is power in Washington, D.C.—that’s it. They just want to take power and transfer it from the states out to the federal government, and that’s what we’re fighting against. We are fighting to make sure that we keep local control over our own state.
Bacon: So the numbers, to me, look dire. There are a lot more Republicans than Democrats in the state Senate, but that may not capture everything. Talk about the Republicans in the state Senate, because it seems like there’s a bloc of them who are not excited about this.
Hunley: Absolutely. And this really is bipartisan opposition. And I think that that’s what’s really clear. I mean, from our leader, the president of the Senate, all the way down to those of us Democrats, there is bipartisan opposition, and we’ve been hearing it from our whole communities across the state, and so I think that that’s the piece that we’re focused on: making sure that people represent their district.
And what’s been really powerful during this fight has been the coalitions that have been built. I mean, people from across the state have been coming to the statehouse to make their voices heard. They’ve been calling and emailing and writing letters to make sure that their voices are the ones that are at the forefront of the conversation today. We will have our first hearing on the Senate side and committee, and folks have been here starting since 7:30 this morning to sign up; the committee hearing’s not until 1:30 p.m. So they’ve been here, ready to go, ready to sign up to make sure that they’ll have their voices heard.
Bacon: Has there been any polling on this? I assume it’s not popular, but I was curious. I haven’t looked it up yet.
Hunley: It is not popular at all. And once people have been educated on the impact of the redistricting and the negative impact of it, we’re at about 78 to 80 percent of Hoosiers who disagree completely. And that was the phone calls that were being made to independents and to Republicans. And so that shows you how high that is.
Bacon: So what is the process next? You’re having a hearing today—so how soon are you likely to vote? I guess the goal is to maybe delay a vote permanently, but how does the process go? Where is it going to go from here?
Hunley: I think our big goal is really to decisively defeat this nonsense. I mean, we want to vote and we want to just let people know once and for all—and by people, I mean Trump—let folks know that we’re not playing this way. So our vote will be—it’s looking like Thursday—our final vote on this. We’ll go into Friday if we need to, and continue on into Saturday if we must. But we’re hoping that we will be able to have a final vote on this on Thursday.
Bacon: It sounds like you need like 15 Republican votes. Are you anywhere close to that now? What’s your sense of the numbers?
Hunley: I am cautiously optimistic, but it’s going to take all of us to continue the pressure to continue calling, to continue showing up at the statehouse, and to continue supporting those who are in opposition. I mean, it’s been nasty the past couple of weeks here—nasty. Not just on Twitter with the internet thumb thugs but people actually making threats toward our members of the legislature, threatening them, threatening their families. It’s been really ugly, and we want that to end. And so a vote, a final vote, we’re hoping can just be the end of that conversation.
Bacon: Now, your colleagues on the Republican side—because I’ve seen that Trump is tweeting or Truth Social–ing, whatever he uses these days—he’s threatening them pretty explicitly. Are they flustered by that? How do they feel? Not physically threatened, but he is definitely suggesting, implying, You vote against this, there’ll be a primary, we will take you down. How do they feel about that?
Hunley: Annoyed. I mean, I’m annoyed on their behalf because we are a sovereign state. We are not meant to follow what D.C. politicians are saying. We are the ones who are representing Hoosiers, who are voting for them who represent our districts. And so there is no reason why folks out in D.C. should have any influence over our elections. The other thing this week is that we’re in regular session right now, so these maps are absolutely a distraction.
But they’re a distraction from the real work. I mean, our utility bills are outrageous right now. Obviously, medical debt is high for folks across the country. That’s true. Here in Indiana, we have a childcare crisis and we also have a housing shortage. And so these are the issues that we’re continuing to be focused on.
And in fact, this week, two of our Democrat-led bills are being heard in committee to address this affordability issue. We’ve got one on housing, and then we also have one on medical debt. And actually, we’ve got another one that is on our thirteenth check for our retirees. And so we’re still doing the work of representing our constituents and trying to avoid this culture-war nonsense.
Bacon: It’s just because I’m curious now: What are the housing and medical debt bills? I guess I had assumed Indiana was Republican—except, per your correction, it’s more purple. What can you pass on housing and medical debt in a state like Indiana that has a lot of Republicans in government, even if maybe not among the voters?
Hunley: Yeah. So we’re looking at, on the medical debt piece, making sure that those pieces of medical debt are not going to hit your credit scores at all. And so that’s really big for us and making sure that then people are getting that relief and that it’s not going to impact liens on people’s homes. Okay, so that’s a big challenge there.
And then on the utilities side, we’re also looking at no tax on utility bills. And so we’ve got several things that our caucus—we are 10, but we are mighty—and we work very hard to make sure that we’re representing folks, not just in our district, but across the entire state. And so we’ve got lots of bills in those areas.
Bacon: Let me finish with: What should the rest of us who are not in Indiana but who are on your side do here? It’s probably not helpful if I get people who live in D.C. to call Indiana legislators—that’s probably not helpful, and in fact that’s what you’re opposing, as you say.
But even regular people in D.C. or in New York or what have you—what can they do? What do you hope people nationally, people who don’t live in Indiana, do about this issue?
Hunley: Well, we hope that they don’t ignore Indiana anymore. I mean, to see that we really do carry quite a bit of power. We’re here in the Midwest, but we need investment. And so in civic education, to help people—we have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the entire country. And so I think that that’s a place that people can help: help educate Hoosiers, help get people out to the polls when it’s time to vote. And that’s a nonpartisan issue, right? Making sure that people understand what’s going on.
And then the other piece is I’m a deep person of faith, and we just need prayer for folks who are nervous and who are afraid because, while some of these threats have just been words, others have not been. And really, it should never be that way.
Bacon: There have been threats about people burning their house. What have the threats been specifically about the redistricting? I know what you’re talking about, but for people nationally, explain.
Hunley: Yes. So there have been bomb threats to people’s homes. There have been swatting attempts where then the police showed up and busted down a legislator’s door, where their children were inside. And that was a false attempt…
Bacon: Targeting Republican legislators who are sort of not sure they’re going to vote for this mainly. Right?
Hunley: Absolutely. But they’ve also targeted some Democrats—the head of our state party as well as a Democrat city councilor. And so this really has just been folks being targeted for speaking up and for speaking out. And so I would say that the other help that we need is for people to condemn those types of actions, because we cannot live in a country where people who’ve been elected are living in fear just for doing their jobs and for speaking up for their constituents.
Bacon: Andrea Huntley, thank you for joining me. Good luck this week. Thanks to everyone that tuned in. Thank you. Have a great week.
Hunley: Thank you. Bye.
