A slightly revised new state Senate map is headed for the Senate floor on Thursday.

Republicans incorporated a Democratic suggestion to avoid overstuffing the district of Minority Leader Greg Taylor (D-Indianapolis) with minority voters. The federal Voting Rights Act encourages majority-minority districts when racially polarized voting effectively denies minority candidates the chance to win elections, but the law otherwise frowns on packing minority voters into one district to dilute their influence elsewhere.

Bedford Senator Eric Koch (R), who led the drawing of the Senate districts, says Republicans made the change after consulting a researcher at East Carolina University, who advised Marion County doesn’t show evidence of racially polarized voting. Under the revised district lines, Indianapolis Democrat Jean Breaux’s district is still a majority-minority district, but Taylor’s no longer is.

Breaux and Taylor are among four African-American senators, and the only two from Indianapolis.

The ripple effect of the change affects a total of nine proposed districts in Marion and Hamilton Counties. Among Marion County’s Senate districts, only Mike Young (R-Indianapolis) and Mike Crider (R-Greenfield) are unaffected by the tweak. The changes don’t significantly affect the party breakdown of the districts.

The full Senate will vote on the maps Friday, but the change means the House will have to reconvene later that day to vote on the revised maps. The House approved the original version last week.

The two Democrats on the Senate Elections Committee, Fady Qaddoura of Indianapolis and J-D Ford of Carmel, joined the unanimous vote for the change, but voted against the overall bill. Republicans rejected a Democratic proposal to rework districts in Fort Wayne, Evansville, Tippecanoe County, and on Indy’s eastside. They also voted down a proposal to junk the proposed congressional map in favor of one drawn by the winner of a redistricting contest conducted by the redistricting reform group All IN 4 Democracy.

Another rejected Democratic amendment would have created an independent commission to get first crack at drawing maps for the next redistricting in 2031. Jeffersonville Republican Ron Grooms joined Democrats in supporting the plan, which Qaddoura says he’ll reintroduce as a standalone bill in the next session in January.