Congressional redistricting tea leaves suggest Stephen Lynch and William Keating will get placed together. However, this doesn’t really make sense from a geographical perspective. Why? Well, currently there are four districts (MA-03, MA-04, MA-09, MA-10) dividing Southeast Massachusetts. In order to keep all incumbents in their districts, any map of Massachusetts will have to have districts that run down from Boston Metro to SE Massachusetts. If MA-09 is eliminated, MA-10 will have to pick up the slack by adding part of MA-09’s portion of SE Mass, rather than adding area to the north. Hence, I drew a Democratic gerrymander that eliminates Lynch while keeping every other incumbent in their district, and Capuano’s district replaces Lynch’s in the cracking of Southeast Massachusetts.
While a gerrymander may seem offensive, there is a strong likelihood that Beacon Hill will draw a contorted congressional map. The proof is in the pudding: just look at the current congressional map, with Richard Neal’s tail up into Northampton, or Barney Frank’s tentacle down into Southeast Massachusetts. Clearly gerrymandering is an option in order to keep incumbents in their districts and all districts Democratic.
While many have suggested getting rid of Lynch by feeding him to Sonia Chang-Diaz, this map does not do that. Under this map, her senate district would more or less be in Capuano’s district. Rather, the goal of this map is to split Lynch’s district multiple ways so he doesn’t have a district to run in. Under this map, his home is put into Tierney’s district, but Tierney is heavily favored. And in the off-chance that Lynch does win, at least Democrats will be rid of a guy with ethics issues rather than one of the other incumbents.
Now let’s get to the maps. Note that every incumbent besides Lynch is kept in their district and that no municipalities are split aside from Boston. [cool maps below the fold — ed]
Whole state: 
MA-01
Incumbent: John Olver (D-Amherst)
Description: John Olver is forced to contend with a redder district as he drops heavily D Holyoke and adds some more reddish Worcester suburbs and Boston exurbs. However, at D+14, he already sits in a super-safe district, one which can be slightly diluted while keeping him safe as long as he actually keeps in touch with voters in his district.
Rating: Safe D
MA-02
Incumbent: Richard Neal (D-Springfield)
Description: Richard Neal gets even safer as in addition to his Northampton/South Hadley tail, he gets all of Holyoke while keeping Springfield, Chicopee, and Southbridge. This district is probably like D+10 or 11.
Rating: Safe D
MA-03
Incumbent: Jim McGovern (D-Worcester)
Description: This district must have stepped in a pool of toxic waste or something, because it grows an extra arm into the Boston Metro area to grab D-tilting Wellesley and Needham. Additionally, this district gains the rest of Fall River from MA-04. That should be enough to insulate McGovern from the addition of a few red towns from MA-04 and MA-09.
Rating: Safe D
MA-04
Incumbent: Barney Frank (D-Newton)
Description: Barney’s tentacle down to SE Massachusetts shifts to the east as he mops up a decent-sized chunk of Lynch’s old territory. The PVI is reduced from D+14 to probably closer to D+12. But Frank is fine. He won by double digits in a Republican wave year against a well-funded challenger, the GOP probably won’t nominate a moderate, and he retains his strongholds of Brookline, Newton, Sharon, and New Bedford as well as adding Hyde Park and West Roxbury in Boston.
Rating: Safe D
MA-05
Incumbent: Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell)
Description: This district isn’t much changed from her current one. She drops some conservative exurbs to Olver but gains some light red areas from John Tierney. She still has Lowell, Lawrence, and much of MetroWest (including an extra precinct in Wayland previously in MA-07) to bail her out. Still, I’m sure Democrats wouldn’t mind if one of these days she actually learned how to campaign.
Rating: Safe D
Now for a Boston close-up.
MA-06
Incumbent: John Tierney (D-Salem), Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston)
Description: And here we have Stephen Lynch’s home. He’s pit against John Tierney in a district where the vast majority of territory is Tierney’s. If Lynch decides to run here, Tierney probably won’t hesitate to point out Lynch’s vote against health care reform from a D+11 district. Also, adding some of Boston and shedding the northern and western ends of his district means Tierney is safe in the general.
Rating: Likely Tierney, Safe D
MA-07
Incumbent: Ed Markey (D-Malden)
Description: This is almost the exact same thing as Markey’s current district except he reaches north and south to add R-leaning towns that will be drowned out by all the liberal areas in the district’s core.
Rating: Safe D
MA-08
Incumbent: Mike Capuano (D-Somerville)
Description: Again, very similar to Capuano’s current district, except he drops Chelsea and his district runs further south to crack Lynch’s district and absorb some red towns as well as light-blue Milton and medium-blue Randolph. Given that Capuano’s district is currently a major vote sink (D+32), it really makes sense for Democrats to dilute it a bit to help spread the wealth around.
Rating: Safe D
MA-09
Incumbent: William Keating (D-Quincy)
Description: If Republicans couldn’t win this district in 2010, they won’t be able to win a district which is basically the same but adds dark-blue Brockton. Even if they nominate a better candidate than Jeff Perry, this one looks good for Team Blue.
Rating: Safe D
Is this not-Elizabeth news? Whoa!
(no really nice job).
I don’t mind weird looking districts if you are keeping a similar demographic together – whether that’s minority, coastal towns, etc. When you divide a community in favor of rigging it against the opposition, however, I have an issue.
I still debate in my mind whether a place like Chelmsford, say, is served better by being the back-of-mind for three in-the-majority Dem Reps or one single Republican one (which if they were a single district, they’d be sure to elect, and it would probably be crazy Martinez). But fairness would dictate that you keep Chelmsford as its own intact district somewhat and let them elect someone to the minority that will get nothing done for them, if that is their desire.
Chelmsford is currently in a district where it gets drowned out by Lawrence and Lowell at one end and Acton, Concord, etc. at the other. The place which really gets screwed over under the current map, I think, is Southeast Massachusetts. It’s got enough population for almost two congressional districts of its own yet it’s split up between people from Newton, Quincy, Southie, and Worcester.
…Lynne was refering to Chelmsford’s current situation of being divided among 4 STATE Representatives, all of whom have most of their district outside of Chelmsford. Previously Chelmsford was its own district represented by RINO Carol Cleven. It makes sense that Chelmsford share a congressional district with Lowell and I like the way you drew that district that it basically keeps the Merrimack River together. Don’t know what that “if she actually learned how to campaign” crack was about with reference to Tsongas. She got her job through a five-way primary and had good GOP opposition in 2007 and 2010, so she must be doing something right.
to be honest, I’ve never been north of Somerville, so I actually don’t know that area very well.
As for Tsongas, I don’t remember her 2007 campaign being very inspiring, and her opponent while having a compelling profile ran a single-issue campaign on immigration. Please correct me if my memory is rusty on this. I will grant her 2010. Winning places like Tewksbury and Billerica was impressive.
(Then again we were spoiled by Eldridge and Eileen Donoghue in that race) but she did work it, and was NOT a Martha Coakley type. Tsgonas may not be my favorite pol, and she concentrates on issues that are not controversial (vet care, body armor for troops) when I wish she’d tackle global warming, fair wages, etc more, but I was around for the 2010 race and she had boots on the ground in the coordinated campaign general election where I was working on Eileen’s state Senate campaign and Patrick’s reelection.
…when you insinuate as you did above that global warming and fair wages ARE “controversial”:(
*sigh*
She’s either there or the Cape.
There is a chance that rather than spend the night in one of her multi-million dollar homes (one of which typically has her man in it) she might stay in her one bed, one bath apartment in Lowell, but I doubt it.
She lives in LOWELL; she’s registered to vote in LOWELL; her most recent job before Congress was based in LOWELL. She is Niki TSONGAS for crying out loud; her political pedigree is entirely associated with LOWELL!
wasn’t expecting this to get promoted đŸ™‚
Very interesting stuff.
The result could be just that . I would still take my chances on Elizabeth Warren so long as she gets a great team to manage the Caucus/convention race. Other wise the ball is in the Reps court his conservative profile may make his an attractive candidate against Brownie. Carhart vs Barn Coat.
…among conservative Democrats IF he makes it on to the ballot. Remember, the convention where he needs to get 15% tends to be dominated by liberal activists. Even if he does get through convention he would have an uphill battle despite multiple progressive candidates. He would be to this race what Jim Miceli was to the 2007 CD-5 primary. That strategy didn’t turn out too well for Miceli even in a district that’s a bit redder than the state as a whole.
Did you keep Capuano’s district minority-majority? I personally don’t care, but I guess the Voting Rights Act requires it.
I would much prefer that Olver’s district not extend farther east than it already is.
A couple of other still snake more than I’d like, but I guess if incumbent protection sans Lynch was your goal then that’s how it has to be.
It is not minority-majority under my map, but the VRA doesn’t require it anyway (see Bartlett v. Strickland).
As for your other point, Olver’s district will almost certainly need to expand to the east as it needs to add 80,000 people (more than any other district in the state). There’s only so much territory he can grab to the south (and I had to do some town-swapping anyway to ensure low population variation while not splitting towns).
In response to the promotion comment by my magnificent co-editor Charley, where’s the cynicism?
Nice to see that people are getting active in this conversation. I encourage anybody who’s interested to submit their own maps to the Redistricting Olympics: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2011/06/massachusetts-redistricting-olympics/