Redistricting’s jagged lines in Lafayette/West Lafayette

Purdue, school districts and even neighborhoods get split in an effort Indiana House members admit is ‘political gerrymandering.’ Plus, Lafayette Brewing Co. announces it will close. And more

• Support for this edition comes from the 12^th Annual Indiana Makers Market Holiday Pop-Up, open for a second of three weekends 4-7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 6-7, at Wea Creek Orchard, 5618 S. County Road 200 East, Lafayette. The Indiana Makers Market is among those nationwide in the hunt for USA Today’s list of the 10 Best Holiday Markets. (We’re waiting for the vote results here.) Check out the curated shopping experience, with the historic barn turned into a holiday shop filled with handmade gifts picked for you and your loved ones from over 50 makers and artists. For special events, music lineups and more each day, go to indianamakersmarket.com.

---

• Support for this edition also comes from French Knot, presenting its annual warehouse sale on back-to-back Saturdays, Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, at 525 Wabash Ave. in Lafayette. Learn more here.

---

REDISTRICTING’S JAGGED LINES IN LAFAYETTE/WEST LAFAYETTE

House Republicans behind proposed maps that redraw Indiana’s nine congressional districts – something President Donald Trump has demanded to beef up GOP seats in the U.S. House – didn’t shy away from how they came up with the lines Tuesday.

This is from Tom Davies and Leslie Bonilla Muñiz, reporting for the Indiana Capital Chronicle:

The author of Indiana’s new congressional redistricting bill acknowledged the maps are “politically gerrymandered” during committee questioning Tuesday but defended the proposal against accusations of illegal racial gerrymandering.

The maps, released Monday morning, were drawn “purely for political performance” of Republicans, Rep. Ben Smaltz told indignant Democratic colleagues on the House Elections and Apportionment Committee.

It was the House’s only public hearing on the maps — and was held with less than a day’s notice.

Over about three hours, 43 Hoosiers spoke against the proposal and two in favor, excluding several state lawmaker witnesses. The meeting featured ominous testimony from Marion County’s Democratic elections chief and Republican former Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann.

The committee voted 8-5 to advance Smaltz’s House Bill 1032 to the floor, with one Republican joining Democrats in opposition.

For more: “House panel advances Indiana map drawn ‘purely for political performance’ of GOP.”

How the maps split up Tippecanoe County

Locally, the proposed mid-decade redistricting maps splits Tippecanoe County into two districts, with often jagged lines cutting up Lafayette and West Lafayette in indecipherable ways – beyond the admission that it was done to divvy up voters to get to get Republicans from a 7-2 advantage in Indiana’s congressional delegation to 9-0.

The proposed lines in Tippecanoe County.

The map would split Tippecanoe County between U.S. House District 4 – which currently covers the entire county and its neighboring counties and is represented by Republican Jim Baird – and House District 5, represented by Republican Victoria Spartz.

Among the features of the map locally:

• The new maps split Lafayette in half at the Fairfield Township/Wea Township line in the southern portion of the city.

• At Purdue, Westwood – the president’s home along McCormick Road – would be in the 4^th District with the main academic campus and residence halls in the 5^th District.

• Purdue’s Discovery Park District would be split in half. The Purdue Airport would stay in the 4^th District, apart from much of the campus.

• The maps would separate one block out of the Bar Barry Heights neighborhood, leaving it as a peninsula jutting off Cumberland Avenue. The line would slice through an eastern section of University Farm in West Lafayette.

• Lafayette, Tippecanoe and West Lafayette Community school corporations would land in two different congressional districts. Here’s the West Lafayette example, though it does a similar number on TSC and LSC.

• Wabash Township would be divvied between the two congressional districts, with pieces of West Lafayette going in different directions, too.

For closer looks at the maps, check this site.

Some of the local reaction

• State Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican who has been against the mid-decade redistricting concept, called the maps “quite brazen” – particularly the way it juts in and out of neighborhoods in West Lafayette. “If this map becomes law, you could work at Westminster Village and walk across the street to a home on the other side of North Salisbury and find yourself in a different congressional district. The same could be said if you worship in University Farms and live on the other side of Cumberland,” Deery said. “The proposed map also offers a case study in how normalizing mid-cycle gerrymandering empowers mapmakers to eliminate primary challengers. I don’t have a public position on the District 4 Republican primary, but I would not be surprised to see more primary challengers at all levels pushed out by incumbent mapmakers rather than by the will of the people if we start drawing maps more than once a decade. That would be bad for voters of all political stripes, but given the power dynamics in our state, it would be especially harmful to conservative Republican challengers.”

• West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter said: “I think Hoosiers are generally very common sense people. And anyone can look at this map and see that it’s not a common sense map.” Easter, a Democrat, said the maps failed a standard of keeping communities of interest together. “There’s no great argument for cutting up the cities of Lafayette and West Lafayette, not recognizing them as communities of interest,” Easter said. “It’s political gamesmanship at its worst.”

• Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski said Tuesday he was still reviewing the proposed maps and what it would mean to split Lafayette. “If you just look at it from a practical matter, it’s going to take people quite a bit of time to get used to that, and I think it’s going to be a little confusing,” Roswarski said. “I think it’s probably going to change some of the continuity of things that happen. … One of our hallmarks here is working together, building relationships, building that continuity. And when things get divided up that much, it certainly will make it more challenging.”

• On Tuesday, Mike Smith, a longtime staff member with the Tippecanoe County Election Board who coordinates voting sites, flagged a number of concerns with the maps in a letter to members of the local delegation to the General Assembly. In the letter, obtained by BiL, Smith said that “aside from the fact the bill splits Tippecanoe County between two congressional districts bringing all the incumbent election administration burdens resultant from such a situation,” the maps ignore that the county Election Board recently amended precinct lines in Wabash Township, which went into effect Nov. 21. He wrote that the bill being voted on this week doesn’t correspond. “From my four decades of working in elections, I can say every redistricting of any kind creates an administrative load, and the more fractured the dictate from the General Assembly, the more exponentially troublesome it is to insure elections are administered accurately, fairly, smoothly, and efficiently,” Smith wrote. “Please direct your attention to working out a solution that does not create more of a workload and that would open the door for issues that stem from using erroneous or outdated definitions and from the use of micro-units like census blocks.”

---

THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …

• More on this later, but sad news today out of downtown Lafayette: Greg and Nancy Emig announced Wednesday morning that they plan to close Lafayette Brewing Co. Last call: Dec. 20. LBC opened in 1993, just the second small brew pub of its kind in Indiana. “In 1993, the idea of a small, local brewery was nearly unimaginable to most people, yet the concept spread across the nation, and showcased the value these small breweries added to their local communities,” the Emigs wrote in a social media post. “We are honored by the small role we could play in craft beer’s uprising, and more importantly, the role we played in our community. Downtown Lafayette has made a stunning transformation over the past 3 decades- evolving from a Main St with every other building vacant into the vibrant and bustling model downtown we have today. We hope our little brewery on Main St helped play a small part in that development.” From that original taste of Prophet’s Rock Ale to Tippecanoe Common today, cheers to a great place on a sad day.

• Steve Meyer, judge of Tippecanoe Superior Court 2, announced this week that he will not seek a third six-year term on the bench in 2026. He said he plans to serve the rest of his current term and retire at the end of 2026. “I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to serve this great community these past 12 years as judge and before that as a (Lafayette) City Councilman for 23 years,” Meyer, a Democrat, said. “I will forever be grateful to the residents of Tippecanoe County for providing me the privilege of serving them for 35 years. It has truly been an opportunity of a lifetime. I hope they will continue to support women and men of good character who seek to serve with honor, dedication and integrity.” The candidate filing deadline for the May 2026 primary begins Jan. 7.

• Samara, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in West Lafayette, is looking for volunteers to lead tours, welcome guests, help maintain the landscape and more. Volunteers must complete at least six shifts per year, ranging from 30 minutes to three hours each. Volunteers may serve more hours if they choose. No experience is needed, and training is provided. Volunteer orientation will take place in March 2026. All prospective volunteers must complete a volunteer application, meet with staff for an interview and complete a background check. To apply, submit an application at https://www.samara-house.org/volunteer/.

Samara (Photo: Nathaniel Allaire for Indiana Landmarks)

Thanks, again, for support for this edition from French Knot, presenting its annual warehouse sale on back-to-back Saturdays, Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, at 525 Wabash Ave. in Lafayette. Learn more here.

And thanks to the 12^th Annual Indiana Makers Market Holiday Pop-Up, open for a second of three weekends 4-7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 6-7, at Wea Creek Orchard, 5618 S. County Road 200 East, Lafayette. For special events, music lineups and more, go to indianamakersmarket.com.

Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.

Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.