Feb 7, 2023
The Hoosier state was buzzing on a Saturday afternoon in February over a basketball game. The storied rivalry of Indiana and Purdue was the sports event of the weekend—in America. The top ranked Boilers were actually one-point underdogs in Bloomington on Saturday to an IU team that played a great first half and then held on for dear life in the second for a 79-74 win.
The game mattered. Like it always used to matter. And not just to the students and alums of the two schools, or even to those of us clinging to memories of one-class high school basketball. This game mattered to the entire basketball world.
As our state’s place at the top of college basketball is being reestablished, our status in Congress has become solidly nonexistent. And it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Who are the power brokers from Indiana in what James Madison referred to as “the first branch of government?” Insert crickets chirping here. The answer is: there aren’t any.
In a state that featured Sens. Richard Lugar and Birch Bayh, and Rep. Lee Hamilton during my lifetime, we aren’t leading anything in the legislative branch these days. Even Rep. Dan Burton was the chairman of a committee in the U.S. House.
Indiana has been apportioned nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 118th U.S. Congress. We have had as many as thirteen from 1875 to 1933, then twelve from 1933 to 1983. Our declining share of national population has cost us dearly in the “people’s House” since.
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