Reapportionment Comes to Connecticut

Connecticut is called the Constitution State. Its famous House of Representatives, which has existed in more or less the same form since the Fundamental Orders were instituted by its dissenting founders in 1638, provides for “unit representation”—representation by locality and not by population. It is the towns of Connecticut, large and small, which are represented in the state’s upper House, usually by two seats each (Connecticut’s Senate is regarded as the lower chamber). A similar arrangement was adopted by the Founding Fathers when they made provision for the U.S. Senate in order to accommodate the smaller states, and that arrangement was quite naturally called the Connecticut Compromise.

House Doomed?

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Edward J. Bell

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Connecticut is called the Constitution State. Its famous House of Representatives, which has existed in more or less the same form since the Fundamental Orders were instituted by its dissenting founders in 1638, provides for “unit representation”—representation by locality and not by population. It is the towns of Connecticut, large and small, which are represented in the state’s upper House, usually by two seats each (Connecticut’s Senate is regarded as the lower chamber). A similar arrangement was adopted by the Founding Fathers when they made provision for the U.S. Senate in order to accommodate the smaller states, and that arrangement was quite naturally called the Connecticut Compromise.

House Doomed?