Profiles in Constitutional Courage and Cowardice Edition #7

Indiana lawmakers resisted gerrymandering despite the cost; Gov. Polis caved under pressure

Editor’s note: At moments when democratic institutions are under strain, the choices of individuals and organizations reveal the true strength of the American rule of law. Some summon the courage to uphold constitutional values in the face of pressure or threats. Others, fearing retaliation or seeking short-term gain, choose complicity and silence.

Issue One’s monthly series, Profiles in Constitutional Courage and Cowardice, seeks to document both. Inspired by generations of Americans who met the test of democracy with conscience and conviction, this series highlights civic bravery — public officials, business leaders, and institutions that refuse to bow to intimidation — and contrasts it with instances of capitulation and complicity that erode the norms and guardrails of a free society.

Our democratic rule of law is not guaranteed. It depends on people willing to defend it when power is abused and to model the kind of integrity our system requires to survive. It requires us to stand up for each other and to band together in the face of unlawfulness.

These profiles are a reminder that courage is contagious, but so too is cowardice. What we choose makes all the difference.

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Courage Profile: Indiana Legislators Who Chose Voters Over Partisan Power

Throughout the course of President Trump’s second term, the fight over congressional maps has escalated into a nationwide redistricting arms race. After Texas initiated mid-decade gerrymandering last August, lawmakers in both parties began to look for ways to redraw maps for partisan gain.

In Indiana, a group of Republican legislators chose a different path.

In December 2025, President Trump began pressuring Indiana GOP state senators to pursue a mid-decade congressional gerrymander designed to further entrench Republican power in the state’s delegation. The argument was familiar: Democrats would gerrymander if they could, control of Congress was at stake, and unilateral restraint was politically naïve.

Thankfully, a number of Indiana Republicans refused to go along automatically. Some raised concerns publicly. Others did so privately in caucus meetings and leadership discussions. But the underlying principle was the same: voters should choose their representatives, rather than politicians choosing their voters. These lawmakers questioned the legitimacy of redrawing maps mid-decade purely for partisan advantage. They resisted the idea that raw political power alone should determine the rules of representation.

None of this should have been controversial. Legislatures are not required to maximize partisan advantage and weaken voters’ voices simply because they have the power to do so. Democracy depends, in part, on elected officials being willing to restrain themselves when restraint is warranted.

But in modern American politics — and especially in today’s Republican Party under President Trump — declining to use every available lever of power is increasingly treated as weakness. Standing against a gerrymander backed by party leadership and aligned with the administration’s broader effort to tilt electoral structures toward partisan advantage carried real political risk.

Earlier this month, many of them paid the price.

Five of the seven Republican legislators who resisted the push for a mid-decade gerrymander lost their primaries after facing backlash from the party base and aligned political groups. Their defeats underscored what made their stand meaningful in the first place: they knew opposing the effort could cost them politically and did it anyway.

As NBC reported, when asked afterward whether they regretted their votes, many said they did not. “My district told me overwhelmingly to vote no, and that’s what I did,” said state Sen. Jim Buck. State Sen. Linda Rogers put it similarly: “I followed the wishes of my district.”

That matters because partisan gerrymandering is often defended as routine hardball politics. But there is a difference between engaging in politics and manipulating the rules of representation themselves. Once lawmakers begin treating district lines as instruments of pure partisan warfare, democratic accountability weakens, and voters have less ability to shape outcomes.

The contrast with other states is stark. Across much of the South, legislatures have responded to the recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais not with caution or institutional restraint, but with an aggressive scramble to redraw maps, consolidate partisan advantage, and weaken opposing voting blocs, particularly communities of color.

It is easy to talk about democratic principles when there is nothing at stake. It is much harder to defend them when your own party is demanding loyalty, the political incentives all point the other direction, and your career may end because you refused to go along.

These lawmakers in Indiana understood the risks and acted anyway.

They leave office with something more valuable than another term in power: the knowledge that, at a moment when democratic restraint was under pressure across the country, they chose to defend it rather than exploit it. That is the definition of constitutional courage.

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Cowardice Profile: Gov. Polis Caves to Trump Pressure on Election Denier Tina Peters

Democratic institutions do not erode only when powerful people attack them. They erode when other leaders decide those attacks are easier to acquiesce than resist.

Last week, Colorado Governor Jared Polis made that spineless choice.

On May 15, Polis announced that he would reduce the sentence of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk convicted for breaching secure election equipment in connection with false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Polis said Peters would be released on parole on June 1, 2026.

For months, President Trump and his allies had waged an aggressive pressure campaign demanding Peters’ release and elevating her into a martyr for the election denial movement. Trump repeatedly attacked Polis personally, calling him a “scumbag governor,” a “sleazebag,” and “weak and pathetic” while demanding Peters be freed. He threatened “harsh measures” against Colorado if she remained imprisoned.

During the pressure campaign, Trump publicly complained that Colorado was “suffering a big price” for refusing to release Peters. His administration simultaneously moved to choke off federal funding streams, end federal programs, deny disaster assistance, dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and relocate U.S. Space Command to Alabama.

And eventually, Polis caved.

But remember, Tina Peters was convicted for compromising secure election systems while attempting to advance baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud. The case was one of the clearest examples in the country of an election official crossing the line from rhetoric into direct interference with election infrastructure itself.

Reducing Peters’ sentence sends a dangerous message. It signals that inside actors who attack our election systems can eventually receive political protection from this administration. It tells election denial activists that sustained pressure campaigns may sometimes work. And it weakens the principle that election officials who compromise secure voting infrastructure will face meaningful accountability regardless of political allegiance.

At a time when many election officials are working diligently and lawfully to protect free and fair elections despite facing threats, harassment, and intimidation, leaders should be reinforcing accountability and public trust, not undermining it. The governor’s actions could open the door to more bad actors unafraid of consequences and risks contributing to skepticism about free and fair free elections.

Polis’ defenders will argue that governors have broad clemency authority and that compassion or proportionality concerns can justify sentence reductions. Governors do have that authority, but context matters. Clemency powers are supposed to serve justice, not to escape from coordinated political intimidation campaigns led by the president of the United States.

The rule of law depends on public officials willing to withstand political pressure when democratic institutions are under strain. Instead of defending the integrity of election administration and the legitimacy of the judicial process, Polis chose to acquiesce.

And the broader consequences extend beyond Colorado. Democratic backsliding accelerates when attacks on elections become politically negotiable rather than institutionally unacceptable. Every concession teaches future actors that pressure can work, accountability is flexible, and democratic norms are weaker than partisan incentives.

This is what constitutional cowardice looks like: yielding to political coercion in a way that rewards election denialism and further erodes trust in free and fair elections.

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