Laura Glesby Photo
Aaron Goode with voting reform advocates at Sally’s slicing session.
Aaron Goode
One alternative Congressional district map, with New Haven and Bridgeport combined.
Seven voting reform advocates gathered around a table at Sally’s, far more satisfied with the way their pizza had been sliced than with the way New Haven is currently split into state legislative districts.
As Connecticut engages in a once-in-a-decade process of redrawing state House, state Senate, and U.S. Congressional districts in light of the 2020 Census’s demographic data, the advocates convened to call for a more transparent, public-driven process — and to slice their own version of district maps.
At the outdoor Wooster Street table for the gathering this past Thursday were members of Common Cause in Connecticut, the New Haven Votes Coalition, the League of Women Voters, and one elected official, Hamden Legislative Council member Justin Farmer.
The task of redistricting the state initially belonged to a 2021 Reapportionment Committee comprised of four Democrats and four Republicans. When the Committee missed its deadline in September, a new Redistricting Commission formed to try to come up with a map. If that commission doesn’t decide on a new map of districts by Nov. 30, the state Supreme Court takes up the responsibility — as it did the last time that Connecticut designed new districts in 2011.
The redistricting process has involved multiple public hearings. But according to the activists gathered on Thursday, most of the hearings garnered little attendance and offered no evidence that elected officials were taking public feedback into account.
Cheri Quickmire, the executive director of Common Cause in Connecticut, argued that commission members “are making these decisions behind closed doors.”
“It should be that voters get to choose their elected officials, not elected officials getting to choose their voters,” Quickmire said. She and her Common Cause colleagues have been advocating for creating of a Citizen Redistricting Committee, as well as additional public hearings on the redistricting process.
One attendee, Joan Twiggs, who champions the League of Women Voters’ People Powered Fair Maps initiative, has been advocating for a large-scale version of Thursday’s event. The model legislation her organization proposed would require the commission to solicit map suggestions from members of the public, while providing guidance and tutorials on how to create those maps.
Joan Twiggs (left) and Cheri Quickmire.
The redistricting process has long-term ramifications for voters’ voice in the legislative process — especially for members of “communities of interest.”
A community of interest is any self-defined group that tends to share legislative goals. That can include members of a particular religious community, neighbors who frequently go to a certain park, residents of a municipality or neighborhood, or people who speak a particular language. Race and ethnicity can be a factor, but not the only factor, in defining a community of interest, according to Common Cause representative Sarah Andre.
As they sat to draw their own legislative maps, the voting reform advocates aimed to keep various “communities of interest” intact. When a community of interest is split across multiple districts, that group’s vote is often diluted and overwhelmed by other priorities, giving legislators less of an incentive to represent its voice.
Ballotpedia
State House of Representatives districts; the now-vacant 116th district is in gray.
As Teran Loeppke, an organizer with Common Cause of Connecticut, put it, “The way district lines are drawn impacts whether your community has what they need.”
According to Aaron Goode, who convenes the New Haven Votes Coalition, New Haven residents are a prime example of a divided community of interest on the state House of Representatives map. There are seven state House districts that cover New Haven, many of which combine sections of New Haven with segments of other towns.
In one extreme example, District 116 is almost entirely located in West Haven — except for a handful of streets in New Haven’s Hill South neighborhood. That means that the state representative for that district is motivated to focus more on the needs of West Haven residents than on the needs of New Haven residents, even though the district contains residents of both cities, Goode said. (Michael DiMassa represented that district in the state House up until recently, when he was charged with allegedly stealing federal Covid relief funds. A special election for the seat is upcoming.)
Justin Farmer spoke of his experience last year running to represent State Senate District 17, which combines largely Democratic Hamden with largely Republican towns in the Connecticut Valley. The communities in District 17 are so varied that “they’re reflective of the diversity of the state,” he said.
Over the course of his campaign, Farmer said, he learned that a large number of Valley residents commute to New Haven and Bridgeport. That led him to wonder what a legislative map would look like if it were centered around transportation lines, with districts designed to reflect not only where people live but where they work and spend much of their time.
Justin Farmer contemplates a transit-oriented district map.
Goode was the only attendee to complete a new suggested legislative map by the end of the afternoon. He focused on the U.S. Congressional districts. He stretched the 5th Congressional district northwards to “increase the competitiveness” there and work around its current “claw shape,” as he put it.
Goode also decided to include New Haven and Bridgeport in the same district — an idea he once disagreed with, he said, noting that it was once pushed by state Republicans. But combining both cities in one district, he noted, would make it “much more possible for a person of color to get elected there.”
State of Connecticut
Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional districts as drawn in 2011.
Aaron Goode’s revised Congressional map.
Next, Goode plans to tackle the state House districts. He said he would prioritize eliminating the handful of blocks of New Haven from the 116th district, reconfiguring the skinny and winding 96th district (which covers the northeastern part of New Haven), and keeping Downtown New Haven at least largely within one district. The Downtown area is increasingly residential, Goode argued. “Downtown is a community.”
He said he would “probably” submit the maps to the Redistricting Commission — “after fine-tuning.”
So grateful for these knowledgeable and thoughtful people to undertake this crucial work! thank you all.