Commentary –

5th District Is The Most Expendable In Redistricting

By Chris Powell

Connecticut’s newest US representative, the 2nd District’s Rob Simmons, is working hard – and maybe working hardest at protecting his district, 69 towns in eastern Connecticut, from dismemberment in the state’s coming reapportionment, which will force six representatives into five districts as the state loses a seat in the House.

In this, at least, Simmons probably has right and history on his side, if not all the political influence necessary, since he is the junior member of the state’s congressional delegation. For if what is called community of interest, rather than the political convenience of more influential incumbents, is to prevail with Connecticut’s redistricting commission, then an eastern Connecticut district, running from the Massachusetts border to Long Island Sound, can claim precedence as a congressional district going all the way back to the country’s founding.

By contrast, the 5th Congressional District, snake-shaped, drawn from Danbury on the west to Meriden on the east, was created only in the 1960s and cobbled together from parts of what were then and are now the congressional districts of northwest Connecticut, the New Haven area, and Fairfield County.

Of all Connecticut’s congressional districts, the 5th District’s towns probably have the least in common with each other. Of its cities, Danbury is, like the rest of Fairfield County, oriented toward New York; Meriden, in the I-91 corridor, is more part of the Hartford and New Haven area; and Waterbury, the district’s largest city, has little to do with either end of the district. None of those cities would miss each other if put in different districts.

As the most recent creation, and a creation more of political convenience than of community interest, and as the only district contiguous to all the other congressional districts, the 5th is by far the most expendable, apart from the interests of its incumbent, Rep James H. Maloney, a Danbury resident some political people may want to push into a candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor so that two US representatives don’t have to run against each other next year.

Even if his district is one of those preserved and expanded 20 percent, Simmons, a Republican who defeated 10-term incumbent Democrat Sam Gejdenson by fewer than 3,000 votes last November, would be politically vulnerable. He would be a first-termer gaining towns he had not yet served and would be seeking reelection in a non-presidential year, which usually favors the party not in control of the presidency – which next year will be the Democrats.

So Simmons is declining White House invitations and such in Washington to do more scurrying across his district – thrusting himself, as a mediator, into the feud between the Mashantucket Pequot casino and nearby towns, and sometimes taking notable and quotable positions on issues.

While he opposes the Bush administration’s restrictions on the use of US money for population control abroad, Simmons enthusiastically supports the president’s tax-cutting proposal. If the country can’t afford to cut taxes when the government is running big surpluses, Simmons asks, when will it ever cut taxes? And he expresses admiration for Bush’s personal restraint, which his predecessor lacked.

Prompted by disclosure of former Sen Bob Kerrey’s participation in the killing of civilians during the Vietnam War, Simmons, a Vietnam veteran too, is remarkably candid in calling the war itself something close to a crime for its general inability to distinguish civilians from military targets and for this country’s waging war when its vital interests were not at stake.

Simmons supports the acquisition of Newport News Shipbuilding by General Dynamics, owner of Newport News’ nominal competitor in the nuclear submarine business, Electric Boat, in Groton, confident that the Navy and Congress will arrange sub contracts to keep E.B. strong. He may be wrong in dismissing peremptorily the possibility of government ownership of military contractors in monopoly situations, such as sub building is about to become. His observation that a government yard built the USS Thresher, which sank with the loss of all hands during a test voyage in the Atlantic in 1963, is not persuasive, since the list of military procurement scandals involving private contractors is far longer and involves similarly disastrous events like the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. But at least Simmons seems intent on protecting the Navy and military contracting investment in southeastern Connecticut.

Simmons is not without ambivalence. Though last year he happily collected the votes of those in southeastern Connecticut who were sick of casino Indians, he is not leading any charge to separate federal recognition of Indian tribes from the casino privileges that go with it and in fact have become the very purpose of most applications for recognition. And in dealing with another incipient tribe with casino ambitions in southeastern Connecticut, the Eastern Pequots, Simmons seems to be retreating a little from past statements that he doesn’t want more casinos in his district. Now he says he just wants the tribal recognition process to be fairer and less subject to political influence and conflict of interest.

But, being rare birds, freshman congressmen may be more easily forgiven their imperfections and ambiguities. As the only member of Connecticut’s delegation with a campaign debt – about $150,000 – Simmons would be in danger of becoming extinct even without the redistricting problem. So it would be a little surprising if the state Republican Party, flush with Governor Rowland’s success, didn’t take note of Simmons’ situation and intervene accordingly.

(Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.)