From Ken Dixon, CT Post:
HARTFORD — With its final deadline of midnight Nov. 30 looming, it’s likely the state’s Reapportionment Committee may gamble on sending the redrawing of Connecticut’s political map to state Superior Court.
But Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Tuesday said it is important for the committee to conclude its work on time and avoid the appearance of partisan Washington gridlock.
“They should get their act together and get reapportionment done,” Malloy told reporters late in the afternoon. “I think failure to do this is a gigantic mistake. There is a process set up that allows this decision to be made. It should be made by that group and they should get their job done.”
As bipartisan talks among state House members and, separately, state senators continued Tuesday, lawmakers had varying degrees of optimism that they could agree on new House and Senate district maps to reflect population shifts in the state as indicated in the U.S. Census.
But after seven months of work, little focus has been put on the state’s five congressional districts, which have to be redrawn to equalize constituent numbers among the state’s population of 3.5 million.
Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, it appears the final map for the 151-member state House of Representatives, which is dominated by Democrats 99-52, is closer to fruition than the 36-member Senate, where Democrats have a 22-14 majority. Partisan staff members and lawmakers have been meeting in closed-door sessions for months, reviewing various proposals for the separate chambers.
For Democrats, the name of the game is to retain their majorities, while Republicans want to be more competitive in elections during the next 10 years.
“I think we still have a ways to go and we’re all cognizant of the fact that time is short,” said Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield.
“Obviously we’re working, so making predictions is not the wisest course of action, but we have not made progress on the congressional redistricting.”
Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said during a break in the negotiations on Tuesday that Democrats and Republicans are still talking about individual Senate districts.
“We’re in the midst of exchanging information back and forth,” Looney said. “We’ll draw some line and submit it to them and then they’ll draw some lines and submit it to us. We’re just kind of going back and forth right now. We’re in one of the breaks where they’re looking at a reworked map that we gave to them.”
The eight-member group that was named in April, equally divided among Republican and Democratic House and Senate members, missed a September deadline and was reappointed by Malloy. The group then selected Kevin Johnston of Pomfret, a former Democratic lawmaker and recently retired state auditor, to become the tie-breaking ninth member.
The issue gets thrown into state Superior Court if the midnight Nov. 30 deadline is missed.
The likely scenario would be a court-ordered, monthlong deadline extension, similar to 2001, after the 2000 U.S. Census.
That would give lawmakers time to settle on new congressional lines, in which parts of the 2nd Congressional District, which takes up the eastern half of the state, would lose about 16,000 constituents to western districts.
Looney recalled that in 2001 the House and Senate maps had been agreed to, but the panel needed more time to redraw congressional seats. That year, because of a shift in population to the western states, Connecticut lost a congressional seat and the six districts were reduced to five.
“I don’t think anyone wants to go to court, but I don’t think anyone fears the courts, either,” McKinney said. “Courts in Connecticut want to see the Legislature deal with legislative business on its own, without court interference.”
House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, said Tuesday that negotiations with House Democrats have been respectful, but when a stalemate is reached, discussion will move to another part of the state map.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, said he is not that concerned about the committee’s work running up against its deadline.
“The congressional changes are an awful lot easier than the state Senate and House,” Himes said in a phone interview, noting that his district is at about plus or minus 1 percent of where it will most likely end up when the commission pushes the 2nd Congressional District west.
I think they should gerrymander the districts so the cities are represented. Then we elect Ernie Newton and show the U.S. what Bridgeport is all about.