A political Rubik’s cube
Population shift in Conn. creates a puzzle for districts
In the upcoming game of political musical chairs, veteran 4th District U.S. Rep. Jim Himes could lose the town of Ridgefield because the state’s largest influx of new residents is in Fairfield County and the congressional boundary needs to shrink by about 25,000 residents.
Fifth District Congresswoman Jahana Hayes might see Norfolk, North Canaan and Goshen slide away to Rep. John Larson’s 1st District. And Congressman Joe Courtney, whose 2nd District abuts Rhode Island, will surely see his lines move west, to possibly gobble up Guilford, because of a population decline of nearly 15,000 people in his district over the last decade.
That would result in U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s 3rd District likely moving sharply north, to Beacon Falls and Oxford, or west, perhaps over the Housatonic River and taking more of Shelton, where a few thousand 3rd District residents live in a city that is now mostly represented by Himes.
That’s one of the myriad potential scenarios
in rejiggering Connecticut’s complicated political map, as state lawmakers ponder new district lines to fit the 2020 Census population changes.
Eight lawmakers assigned to the task, four from each major party, are looking not only at the Congressional lines but also the boundaries for the state Senate and House of Representatives. And they are presssed for time, as some campaigns are already underway.
Redrawing the state’s political lines amounts to a complicated game board of dominoes, or perhaps a Rubik’s Cube, in which every action may result in a corresponding need to shift other towns, cities and even neighborhoods elsewhere.
The goal: Cause as little disruption to the status quo as possible while finding equal district sizes — as each party fights for its interests. The first deadline to act is in less than a month.
The shift since 2011
In the big picture, over the last 10 years eastern Connecticut has lost population while the western half of the state, especially Fairfield County, has gained substantially.
But the eventual 2021 statewide redistricting, with a year-end deadline, will be nothing like the crash of political tectonic plates back in 2001, when Connecticut’s declining population resulted in the demise of the old 6th Congressional District. In the subsequent election showdown of 2002, Republican Nancy Johnson of the 6th defeated 5th District Democrat Jim Maloney by 23,000 votes.
On the face of it, redistricting is a matter of simple arithmetic. For the last decade, the state’s 3.57 million population has been divided equally among the five congressional districts, with about 714,820 residents per district, all currently represented by Democrats.
The 36 state Senate districts average about 99,280 residents, while each House member has close to 23,669 constituents, in a map finalized in late 2011.
Now, with the latest Census figures pegging the population at just over 3.6 million, congressional districts will bump up to about 721,189 constituents, according to the Census release of this month. That means CT1 has a target of 3,535 more residents; CT2 is looking at an additional 21,288 and CT3 could pick up 5,829.
On the other hand, CT4 must contract by 25,627 people, shifting constituents to the 3rd, 4th, 5th or all three, while CT5 needs to move 5,024 people to another district, possibly the 3rd or 1st.
Hoping for public comments
Ridgefield, in the northwestern corner of the 4th District, has 25,053 residents, an increase of 395 since 2011, making it a good candidate for a swap to the adjacent CT5. Guilford’s 22,073 residents, on the eastern edge of U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s 3rd District, would be a near-perfect fit for the 2nd.
But the 3rd District needs more residents in the upcoming redistricting, not fewer.
The committee will have endless computer simulations to spit out and endless swaps for Republicans and Democrats to haggle over.
“The important thing is making sure the process is transparent so people understand why the lines are moving,” said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, the election watchdog group.
She noted that the arrival of more Black and brown people to the state over the last 10 years increases the importance of getting their participation in the once-every-10-years redistricting process — particularly at a time when state legislatures throughout
the country have been found guilty in courts of drawing district maps that take away elective power from minorities.
“Thirty percent additional Hispanic and Latinx residents in the state over the last decade is a very big number,” Quickmire said. “While this process has historically been conducted behind closed doors with minimal public input in the way of local public hearings, 2021 is our year to flip the script and ensure that the voices of our communities, particularly those of Black, indigenous, Latino, Asian and other communities of color are at the center of the conversation.”
That makes the upcoming work of the bipartisan Reapportionment Committee of the General Assembly even more important as it rearranges the political map.
Trying to preserve the old lines
Because of massive delays in getting the new Census data during the pandemic last year, the eight-member committee, which has held just one meeting back in April, will assuredly miss its mid-September deadline. Under state law, members will then appoint a nonpartisan member and reconstitute as a nine-member Reapportionment Commission to eventually vote on new maps before the end of the year.
The Reapportionment Commission did not meet its deadline for redrawing a congressional maps in 2001 or 2011. In 2001, the state Supreme Court set a December deadline that was successfully met. In 2011, the high court named a special master for redistricting and adopted the plan in February, 2012, according to a recent history of the issue prepared by nonpartisan legislative staff.
“This information has come in so late, there’s no way for us to do our job right,” said House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, a member of the current commission.
He expects about a half-dozen public hearings to be held throughout the state in early September, seeking input on the political remapping. Commission members are set to begin training this coming week with legislative staff, Candelora said Friday.
“It seems that we are going to be a little slow getting into a room to talk,” Candelora said.
While some General Assembly districts have changed little since the 1960s, many have changed drastically, such as Candelora’s, which includes Durham, Guilford, North Branford and Wallingford, but once contained parts of Meriden and East Haven.
The 2011 redistricting turned Larson’s CT1 district into a circular, Hartford-centric “lobster claw.”
“I think a lot of factors go into it,” Candelora said. “There is no question that they look at existing districts and try to preserve them as much as possible for incumbents. The map has many challenges. Growth creates flows where you can tweak around the edges, but widespread reductions like in the 2nd District, it’s difficult to make up those numbers.”
The population shift likely means the loss of a state House of Representatives seat in eastern Connecticut, and the gain of a House seat in Fairfield County.
No more ‘prison gerrymandering’
The remapping problems are exacerbated by the additional calculations from the new law ending so-called prison gerrymandering for state House and Senate populations. Redistricting officials will now have to look at where the incarcerated populations call home and include them in those communities, mostly the cities of Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford and Waterbury.
“I think we are disenfranchising those individuals because they no longer had representation where they lay their heads,” Candelora said.
Those numbers can make a significant difference in state
House district. For example, according to redacted reports from the state Department of Correction, 1,435 incarcerated Bridgeporters will be shifted from residing in institutions including Enfield, Somers, Suffield and East Lyme, for inclusion in their listed hometown.
Enfield prisons house 2,158 people, while there are 1,906 in Suffield, 1,419 in Cheshire, 1,306 in Somers, 1,115 in Uncasville and 786 in the women’s prison in the Niantic section of East Lyme.
About 1,423 incarcerated Hartford residents will be included in their hometown census for purposes of state House and Senate seats, along with 1,167 from New Haven and 1,163 from Waterbury, 306 from Stamford, 205 from Danbury, 197 from West Haven, 188 from Norwalk, 161 from Torrington, 135 each from Hamden and Stratford, 131 from Middletown and 75 from Milford, according to the DOC.
Senate President Martin Looney, D-New Haven, who served on the 2011 reapportionment committee and commission, said that with the current incarcerated population about half what it was 10 years ago, figuring them into House and Senate districts shouldn’t have much of an effect on geographical boundaries.
Looney said that precision in making sure new districts have equal populations is the challenge.
“The big driver in Fairfield County is Stamford, with 13,000 more people than 10 years ago,” Looney said, recalling that 10 years ago, there was agreement on state House and Senate lines, but not Congress, sending the battle into the court.
“Now we’re very late in getting the data, which we usually get in the spring,” Looney recalled. “Ten years ago we had public hearings in the summer. But we still have to have mandates in place by end of this year, because we need new lines for the 2022 elections.”