Reapportionment and Redistricting in Connecticut
All across our nation, politicians are gathering to decide who will and will not be your next State Representatives, Senators and U.S. Members of Congress. And not for just the next two, four or even six years. What they are working on now could virtually "lock-in" incumbents for the next decade and beyond. And yet, no one will be urging you to get out and make your voice heard with your vote. Because, simply put, you and I don't have a vote in this process and incumbent politicians have no desire or interest in giving us one. Now is the time to be heard about this process. Common Cause members around the state have been testifying at public hearings and contacting members of the committee at the Connecticut General Assembly to ensure that the process is open and transparent.
These were the 2011 Connecticut Reapportionment public hearings.
In Connecticut, the bipartisan Reapportionment Committee, made up of eight legislators, develops the redistricting plan. The committee members are Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams (Co-chair), House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero (Co-chair), Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, Senator Lenorard Fasano, House Speaker Christopher Donovan, Representative Sandy Nafis and Representative Arthur O'Neil.
We urge members of the Reapportionment Committee to ensure that the process of redistricting in Connecticut be as open, transparent, and accessible as possible. Secrecy in government is inherently contradictory to democracy. A country that is not accountable to its people risks losing its basic legitimacy. Open government, transparent processes and a fully informed and engaged citizenry helps ensure this never happens. A redistricting process that that leads to well-defined and well-represented communities will better promote a self-determinative democracy in which individuals and groups create solutions to the greatest problems facing our cities, towns, counties and states.
Find out more about Redistricting.
Prison Based Gerrymandering
Prison-based Gerrymandering is the distortion of our democratic process caused by the Census Bureau’s practice of counting people where they are confined, not where they come from. Crediting all of Connecticut’s incarcerated people to a few locations enhances the political clout of the people who live near prisons, while diluting the voting power of all other Connecticut residents. Without using prison populations as padding, seven Connecticut Assembly Districts are missing more than 5% of their required population.
The CT General Assembly declined to call HB 6606, AAC the Residence of Incarcerated Persons for the Purpose of Legislative Districting, effectively killing the bill. It will be 10 years, the next U.S. Census, before this can be taken up again in the legislature. It is imperative that the CT Reapportionment/Redistricting Committee repair this distortion. People who are incarcerated should be counted at their legal address not in their prison cell where they reside temporarily.
Common Cause in Connecticut is working with the Prison Policy Initiative to end Prison Based Gerrymandering.
Additional Resources
· Importing Constituents: Incarcerated People and Political Clout in Connecticut, by Peter Wagner and Christian de Ocejo, March 2010
· Racial Disparity in Connecticut: Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population, chart.
· Ending prison-based gerrymandering would aid the African-American and Latino vote in Connecticut [PDF]