We are asking league members, friends and supporters to help shine a light on redistricting both this year and in future cycles.  

Thank you to everyone who testified about Redistricting during the recent public hearings.  Since a District Map Plan was not approved by September 15 - as required by the Connecticut Constitution - the process has moved to the next step.   A nine-member Reapportionment Commission must now develop and approve the District Map Plan.  Their deadline is November 30. 

Action: Please reach out to your Connecticut House and Senate members to ask that the current Reapportionment Commission conduct their business transparently and to make plans to require transparency during every Redistricting cycle.

You can find your representatives on the General Assembly website’s landing page:   https://www.cga.ct.gov/. 

As always, let us know what action you took by contacting Joan Twiggs at redistricting [at] lwvct.org.  

Here is some text for you to use or adapt when contacting your representative:

Dear [Name of Representative]:

I am a member [or friend/supporter] of the League of Women Voters of [your league or just League of Women Voters if friend/supporter] writing to you today about the Connecticut Redistricting process.  As you know, the process is now in the hands of a Reapportionment Commission.  We ask that the Commission conduct its work in an open and transparent manner. 

Additionally, the Connecticut legislature could establish much better open government and public engagement provisions for future Redistricting cycles by creating process transparency legislation to wrap around the current state Constitutional provisions. 

Here are some ideas for provisions that could be included in such 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. 

Would you introduce and support legislation to create greater Redistricting transparency? 

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