Source: https://www.ctexplored.org/the-land-of-steady-constitutional-habits/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:17:18+00:00

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It is true that the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 motivated the colony to seek a charter signed by the king. The colonists got an excellent charter in 1662 from Charles II that put the crown’s imprimatur on the colonists’ continuing to do what they had been doing anyway since 1639 under the Orders. Indeed, when the colonists voted to amend various provisions in the Orders over the following century, they did so without bothering to inform the monarch that these changes were contrary to various provisions of the Charter. The charter also gave them land all the way to “the South Sea on the West part” (the Pacific Ocean), which later caused territorial disputes in Pennsylvania (See “The Map that Wasn’t a Map,” spring 2012). The king apparently wanted to consolidate the New England colonies into one dominion more easily controlled from London; he must have thought that granting Connecticut a Charter was a step in that direction. Indeed, it did result in one step, but only one step, in that direction when charterless New Haven colony decided to join Connecticut colony in 1665.
Thereafter, outsiders had even less success in exerting authority over Connecticut. In 1693 New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher, a royal appointee, appeared in Hartford, as had Andros before him, and attempted to take over. Unlike Andros, Fletcher met resistance and left. The following spring King William III ratified a report verifying that the charter had not been revoked. This ended threats to Connecticut’s existence from other colonies. Attempts by Massachusetts to initiate legal proceedings challenging Connecticut’s legal existence went nowhere. Connecticut even asserted its de facto independence from England in a probate dispute in the 1720s in which the Connecticut court refused to follow English law under which the eldest son inherits all the land. The eldest son, John Winthrop, in a case called Winthrop v. Lechmere, challenged the decision of the Connecticut court in the Privy Council in London. In 1728 the Privy Council reversed the Connecticut decision, but when Winthrop attempted to execute on the judgment of reversal, Connecticut authorities simply ignored the Privy Council judgment.
Connecticut did get around to writing another constitution—the one we currently live under—in 1965. But the 1965 Constitutional Convention was called for the same narrow purpose as the 1902 Convention—to reapportion the general assembly. The problem in 1965 was more acute than in 1902 because the federal court in Butterworth v. Dempsey in 1964 had declared that Connecticut’s apportionment of the general assembly violated the one-man-one-vote decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964) found that both branches of the general assembly had districts of widely varying population but the same number of representatives. Unless Connecticut did something, the federal courts would do it for them. A constitutional convention accordingly was called and made the appropriate state constitutional changes to keep the federal wolves at bay.
Connecticut’s steady constitutional habits have been reinforced by the role of the Connecticut Supreme Court. This court has been in existence since 1784. Until the 1818 Constitution was adopted, Supreme Court decisions could be appealed to the general assembly, but since 1818 the Supreme Court’s decisions have been final (unless a federal issue allows an appeal to the United States Supreme Court).
There have been exceptions, most notably when the Democrats arranged for Republican U.S. Senator Raymond Baldwin to be appointed directly to the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1949 to create a vacancy in the U.S. Senate to be filled by a Democrat. But in general the tradition meant no wide swing in the philosophy of the court over the years. Even today, the governor’s nominations to the state supreme court rarely engender much controversy from members in the opposition party in the general assembly, likely because governors do not appear to have used the process to promote some liberal or conservative political or judicial agenda.
Wesley Horton has appeared as appellate counsel in hundreds of cases over a span of 40 years. He has argued some of the most notable cases in the state, including Kelo v. New London to the United States Supreme Court and Sheff v. O’Neill to the Connecticut Supreme Court. He has published books on the Connecticut Constitution and the history of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

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