The state Supreme Court may give legislative leaders a second chance to approve a bipartisan compromise on congressional redistricting.
The high court will hold a hearing Friday on whether to allow the bipartisan Reapportionment Commission to draw a new congressional map that merges two of the state’s six House districts.
The nine-member panel — dominated by top legislative leaders — had focused on a plan to combine the current 5th and 6th districts but became snarled in a partisan dispute that left them unable to reach a deal by last Friday’s midnight deadline. Missing the deadline sent the redistricting work to the state Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, lawmakers from both parties said they were ready to try again.
“I would like the court to give it back to us,” said House Minority Leader Robert Ward, R-North Branford. “I think if the court tells us to get the job done, maybe we can sit down and come up with a compromise.”
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin Sullivan, D-West Hartford, agreed, calling the issue inherently political and one that is best solved by politicians.
Sullivan and other lawmakers said they would prefer to take up the issue in a very short time frame — most likely by Christmas — and would probably begin where they left off Friday night — considering a merger of the 5th and 6th districts.
House Speaker Moira Lyons, D-Stamford, said she thinks lawmakers can resolve their differences in as little as two days.
Lyons and other Democrats were incensed that Republicans rejected a last-minute offer Friday night that would have taken heavily Democratic Meriden out of the 5th District and placed it in the 3rd District, which includes New Haven.
Minutes after the deal collapsed, both sides accused each other of failing to bargain in good faith. By Tuesday, tempers had cooled, and both sides saw an advantage to a legislative solution, rather than one imposed by the courts.
–Associated Press