Top 10 of 2022: #8: Council Districting Raises Racial Gerrymandering Concerns

It is said the journalism is the first draft of history. And part of the mission of any real newspaper, including the New Britain Progressive, is to record contemporary events well for the future judgment of history.

In 2022, the city hall of Republican Mayor Erin Stewart approved a plan for new City Council districts for the next ten years in a way that limits the voting power of the communities of color to less than their share of the city’s population, according to an analytical tool used by The New Britain Progressive.

The new districts appear to have limited the voting strength over Council elections of the large and growing majority population of Latinos, African Americans and other communities of color, while preserving the power of city’s white minority.

While the Council approved this plan of districting, it did reject a proposal to reduce the number of polling places.

Yet the Council district plan the Republican-dominated city hall left behind for the next ten years is now recorded for what may be the deservedly harsh judgment of history, and this makes this unfortunate moment one of the New Britain Progressive‘s Top Ten Stories of 2022.