Update: Tolland Split in Redistricting Plans for State House

Updated: Monday, Dec. 5, 12:30 p.m.

In an email to Tolland Patch, State Representative Bryan Hurlburt (D-53rd District) responded to the proposed State House district split, which would place the southwest portion of Tolland in the 8th district.

Hurlburt said that the town was split since the population of the 53rd district (Ashford, Willington and Tolland) increased, according to the latest census data, making the district "over-sized" in comparison to the average district.

"Between the three towns, a population had to be drawn out," Hurlburt explained. "To complicate things, the population that we were over was not big enough for one town, and so it had be a section of one town."

Hurlburt added that these regulations stem from the one-man one-vote principle that was adopted at the Constitutional Convention in the 1960s. He said that state House districts were based by town prior to the 1960s regulation.

Despite the split, Hurlburt said that he will consider himself a complete Tolland representative.

"I plan on helping out any Tolland resident to the best of my ability regardless of where a line is drawn," he said.

Original Story:

According to maps posted on the Connecticut General Assembly Web site, Tolland will be split into two House districts as part of the state's new lines, which were approved by the bipartisan commission on redistricting on Wednesday afternoon. According to the map, a small southwest portion of town will transfer from the 53rd district to the 8th. Tolland is slated to remain a part of the 35th Senate district.

The Reapportionment Commission unanimously approved both redistricting proposals, which now must go to the Secretary of the State for her approval before they go into effect. The new districts, if approved by the secretary, would be in place for the 2012 General Assembly election cycle.

The commission, which was facing a deadline today to approve the redistricting proposals, was unable to reach consensus on a plan to redraw Connecticut’s congressional district lines. Under state law, the panel must now ask the Connecticut Supreme Court to give it a 30-day extension to draft and approve a plan.

The 9-member commission began work on redrawing the House and Senate districts in April after it was appointed by the legislature. Connecticut law requires that the districts be studied and, if necessary, their lines be redrawn if necessary, following each federal census. The most recent census was conducted in 2010 and showed that Connecticut’s population grew by nearly 5 percent to about 3.6 million people.

One of the biggest changes under the redistricting plan approved by the commission was the creation of a new House district that would encompass largely just the town of Windsor, which previously had been split into three House districts.

The House-redistricting plan that was approved also will shift 994 people in Groton’s 41st District into the 40th District, which is also in Groton. The move, commission members said, was needed to correct an error in the 2010 federal census data, which moved those residents from the 40th to the 41st district.
Commission leaders said the redistricting effort was a daunting task, but a fair and open process devoid of the political shenanigans that often accompany such efforts in other states.

“We didn’t always agree and sometimes things got hot in the room, but this was a fundamentally bipartisan process,” said Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat.

Maps and reports of the commission’s redistricting plans will be available on the panel’s Web site sometime Thursday, commission staffers said.