Redistricting Complaints: Incumbents Protected, Communities Split

Put community concerns ahead of politics, area residents told lawmakers at a public hearing Monday in Norwalk on redrawing boundaries for state and federal legislative districts.

Many of the 18 speakers asked that so much or at all when new boundaries are proposed for state Senate and House districts.

“Sure there are political considerations, but we’ll keep it to a minimum,” said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, Republican of Norwalk, in response to a question from the audience.

Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams (D-Brooklyn) staunchly agreed: The process "is absolutely bipartisan," he said.

The hearing at Norwalk City Hall was one of five being held across Connecticut this month by the state legislature's Reapportionment Committee.

The president of the 2,000-member nonpartisan League of Women Voters reminded the six legislators who convened the hearing of the legal requirements of the Voting Rights Act ("one person, one vote") and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

"The Acts have potential to conflict with partisan objectives," cautioned Greenwich LWV president Cheryl Dunson. "Districts can be drawn to give some people more voting power than others."

"District lines can be drawn in an infinite number of ways," Dunson said, "and how they are drawn can affect who is elected."

How the process works

The Reapportionment Committee puts together a proposal every decade to redraw district boundaries reflecting U.S. Census results.

Boundaries for U.S. House of Representatives districts in the state, as well as state Senate and state House of Representatives seats, will be proposed by the committee.

The committee faces a deadline to present proposals for the General Assembly to adopt by September 5. Should the lawmakers deadlock, ultimately the Connecticut Supreme Court is empowered to establish new districts.

Hispanic Senate districts urged

Rick Cruz and Werner Oyanadel, both of the state Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission, asked the Committee to consider creating state Senate districts in Hartford, Bridgeport and Stamford in areas of greater-than-50-per-cent Hispanic voter population.

They said the Latino and Hispanic population represents 13.4 per cent of the state's population and, at 49.6 per cent, experienced the greatest growth since the 2000 census of any ethnic group in the state.

Although there are several state representatives of Hispanic heritage, there are none in the state Senate, they said.

Cruz said Hispanics earn 70 cents for every dollar earned by white workers in Connecticut and their rate of unemployment, 17.7 per cent, far exceeds white unemployment.

A voice is needed in the state Senate to respond to their special needs, he said.

Where to count prison inmates?

Several speakers addressed the question of whether the state's population of 20,000 incarcerated inmates should be considered residents of the communities where they resided at the time of their arrest, rather than where they are incarcerated, for redistricting purposes.

LWV president Dunson, who noted that "redistricting is not straightforward," stated that legislative districts nevertheless should have equal populations and respect political and geographic boundaries. The League supports counting inmates as residents of their hometown communities.

Following the hearing, John Hartwell of Westport said he believes lawmakers are already "slicing and dicing—it's all about incumbent protection and incremental advantage."

"Each side protects its own and has a staff equipped with geo-coded software," he said.

Splitting up Weston, New Canaan and Redding

During the hearing, John Hartwell of Westport urged the panel to create "more competitive, less incumbent-protective" districts.

"Too many are single-party districts," Hartwell said, and too many "lack an organic feel" because they break apart natural constituencies.

"I believe this is a real problem," Hartwell added, noting for example that New Canaan and Redding are each divided into two state House districts and two state Senate districts.

"It's really a patchwork out there that doesn't promote democracy," he said, proposing a radical redistricting that would link four house districts with each senate district.

Hartwell said that the Senate district that includes Westport, Wilton and other towns but only a sliver of Weston disadvantages Westonites.

His remark drew criticism from Larry Cafero a Norwalk Republican and minority leader in the state House of Representatives. Cafero sprang to the defense of Senator Toni Boucher, who represents that district. (Hartwell has unsuccessfully challenged her for that seat.)

Cafero spotted Boucher in the audience and invited her to speak, which she briefly did to say state legislators represent everyone in their districts "whether 100,000 or two" to the best of their ability.