The Redistricting Action Map

The Redistricting Action Map

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October 8, 2021

 

On September 2nd, with less than 24 hours’ notice, the Reapportionment Committee announced that they would hold a meeting the next day, Friday, September 3rd.  At that meeting the Committee announced that it would hold four public hearings beginning September 8th.  With that, the Redistricting season began in earnest. 

Here at the League of Women Voters of Connecticut, we also put out the call to our Leagues and League members that it was time to get involved.  The 5-part blog series I wrote as LWVCT People Powered Fair Maps Champion came in handy to help Leagues craft messages and testimony.  Some of you submitted written testimony, some testified in person or Zoom, and some of you did both. League of Women Voters of Fairfield continued its planning for a multi-part series on redistricting called “Spotlight on:  Redistricting and Your Vote.” All of you asked great questions and communicated the League’s position calling for redistricting transparency.

Put your League on the
Redistricting Action Map.  

LWVCT Vice President for Advocacy and Public Affairs, Tisha Rossi, and I are grateful to all who put yourselves and your leagues on the “Redistricting Action Map.”  Our call to action, which started as a metaphor, has now become a literal map and we invite you to check it out!  Click on each LWV icon to see which League is highlighted and what they did. 

It’s not too late to get
on the Action Map!
Redistricting continues.  

Also, it’s not too late to get on the Action Map! Redistricting continues.  The process has now moved to the next stage.  The bipartisan Reapportionment Committee has been dissolved and a bipartisan Reapportionment Commission has been instituted.  This Commission when fully assembled will consist of nine members.  Eight of them have been named with the ninth member not yet named.  As expected the eight members include the leaders of the Majority (Democrats) and Minority (Republican) parties. 

What can you do? 

In our last call to action we asked you to write to your General Assembly Senators and Representatives to urge their support for formalized transparency legislation.  After you take action, let me know:  redistricting [at] lwvct.org.  As we said in the Action Alert: 

Here are some ideas for provisions that could be included in your messages calling for legislation:

  • Required notice periods for announcement of hearings
  • Mechanisms to foster two-way communication with the public, for example sharing the legislature’s internal deliberations and draft map plans
  • Telling the public which criteria - in addition to required criteria-that have been prioritized to inform the shape of districts including any usage of information related to incumbents’ addresses. (Criteria required in Connecticut are equality of population, Voting Rights Act anti-discrimination provisions and geographic contiguity.)
  • Additionally, the Legislature should help educate the public about Redistricting particularly since it happens only every 10 years. As the Reapportionment Committee chairs noted, there are relatively few people this cycle who provided public testimony.  The Legislature itself through its processes could help the public be better prepared to participate.  For instance, there are many examples from other states of modern, plain language, informative and navigable websites. 

Visit the Action Alert: 

Ask your Connecticut House and Senate members:  Will you introduce and support legislation to create greater Redistricting transparency?

Joan Twiggs
Director at Large
League of Women Voters of Connecticut

 Visit the LWVCT People Powered Fair Maps Page 

Issues referenced by this article: 
Redistricting
League to which this content belongs: 
Connecticut

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