City Council Redistricting to Begin

The City Charter process requiring the City Council districts be re-drawn every ten years appears about to begin.

An item appears on the agenda of the Council meeting today, January 26, 2022 for a, “Re-Districting Resolution.”

The Charter requires the Council, every ten years, to establish a, “districting commission” of between four and eight people, “no more than fifty (50) percent of whom shall be members of the same political party.”

The commission’s purpose is to re-draw the neighborhood-based districts, commonly called “wards,” from which two-thirds of the Council members are elected.

The New Britain City Council consists of ward council representatives, who are elected, two each from the city’s five wards. Five more Council members are elected at-large.

Every ten years, after the national census, districts for federal, state and local elections are re-drawn to account for changes in population. This is so that all of members of the United States House of Representatives, State Senate, State House Representatives and City Council elected from wards each, in their respective institutions, represent nearly the same number of people.

The reapportionment of State House of Representatives districts and State Senate districts was completed in November.

The appointment of the city districting commission actually is overdue, since the Charter says that is was supposed to have been appointed, “No later than thirty (30) days following the completion of reapportionment of the general assembly,” which was completed on November 23, 2021.

The Charter says that the districting commission has seventy days to complete its work. It must, “hold a public hearing at least one week before it submits its report to the Common Council, and shall make a tentative map of its proposed districts available to the public,” at least three says before the hearing. The districting commission can change its proposed map before it sends it to the Council.

The Council then has three weeks to approve a districting plan, which can be the same or different from the proposal of the districting commission’s proposal.

If either the commission or Council miss their deadlines, the mayor then proposes a three-person commission, who then make the final decision on the district lines.

The Charter requires that each of the five Council wards,

(1) shall be of substantially equal population and otherwise consistent with all federal and state constitutional and statutory requirements; (2) to the extent possible consistent with the preceding, shall maintain the integrity of recognized neighborhood planning areas; (3) shall be geographically contiguous and compact; and (4) to the extent possible consistent with the preceding, shall be consistent with existing legislative districts.

Once approved, the new City Council ward boundaries will remain in effect for ten years. Those districts will be in place for the 2023, 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031 city elections.