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 there. 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 that 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 they’re trying 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. There are, unfortunately, only 10 of the 50 members are Democrats in the Senate in Indiana, so you’ll need some Republicans to join this cause.

But there are some Republicans in the Indiana state Senate who are weary of Trump and weary 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—I know 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........

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