Detail of the City of Boston
No towns or Cities are divided between districts, except Boston. In the difference maps that follow, dark green represents towns that are in both the old and new district. Light green is for towns gained by the district. Towns no longer in the district are in purple.
District 1 (blue)
Population losses in Western Mass force this district further into the Boston exurbs. 40% of the district’s population now lives in or East of Fitchburg, meaning that there’s a decent chance of the next rep being from the Nashoba Velley or MetroWest when Olver retires.
District 2 (green)
Shifts West slightly, ending the weird looking split of the lower Connecticut River valley.
District 3 (purple)
Little change here. Fall River is no longer split though.
District 4 (red)
The tentacle reaching out to Newton looks a little less ugly, as the district shifts a bit East to grab suburbs formerly represented by Lynch.
Distirct 5 (gold)
While retaining its Merrimac Valley core, the 5th has to shift to South to accommodate the changes in Boston.
District 6 (teal)
Little change here, though we do need to add the moderate sized cities of Woburn and Revere to make up for population losses in Essex County.
District 7 (gray)
The 7th becomes significantly more urban with 40% of its population now being areas formerly in the 8th district. This could potentially expose Markey to a primary fight if Capuano’s replacement is from this area, but his seniority in the house, his Liberal record, the greater familiarity the other 60% of the voters have with him and his large wad of cash should ensure he prevails.
District 8 (periwinkle)
Lynch now gets to represent most of Boston rather than just Southie, Beacon Hill and the more suburblike Southern neighborhoods. This might pose a bit of a challenge for him as half his constituents will be new. He could be vulnerable to primary challenge, especially if Capuano’s replacement is from this area, but Lynch is a skilled politician and the hyper ideologically liberal parts of the old 8th district (cough Cambridge cough) are now mostly in the 7th. The district retains its majority-minority status with 48% of its population being non-hispanic whites.
District 9 (cyan)
(Ignore that green triangle extending to the islands, I don’t know how that got there)
The old 10th redesignated the 9th, changes little, adding a couple towns formerly represented by Lynch and trading a little territory with the 4th for population equality purposes.
I don’t like the shape of my fifth CD at all. I wish you had extended it down the Merrimack rather than all the way to Norfolk County.
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p>The first CD already extends too far east IMO. Bringing it inside 495 and almost to Lowell makes it worse.
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p>Not that anyone asked my opinion, but we should dump the federal requirement protecting minority districts. I was under the impression that every person counted the same ever since the 3/5 clause became moot.
Western Mass has lost population. The other option is to combine the first and second districts, which may be what will happen.
Greater Springfield should be in the western district, not the edges of Greater Lowell. Yes, it means a possible turf battle between Olver and Neal, but that’s tough as far as I’m concerned.
Are you saying that the Voting Rights Act was not necessary??
I do believe it was necessary to invoke the 15th Amendment’s enforcement clause regarding the rights of all races to vote. I don’t believe it is necessary to mandate that certain districts are mostly a certain race since everyone’s vote counts the same.
and the way Gerrymandering was used to effectively deny Blacks representation. That being said, the best solution is to eliminate Gerrymandering altogether. I favor the creation of an apolitical commission, like they have in Canada. “Bi-partisan” commissions are just as likely to engage in Gerrymandering as anyone, they just do so with an eye at protecting all incumbents rather than favoring one party over another.
My vote counts just as much in one district as it would if I were put into another district, assuming the populations are equitable, which of course they should be.
Ignore the whole racial issue for a second.
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p>If you have a city or other well defined community or region that has sufficient population to merit it’s own representation either in congress or in a state legislature and you divide it six ways putting them into districts dominated by voters who have different interests and different political views than that city or region, you’re saying it doesn’t deny them a political voice?
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p>That’s why gerrymandering is so insidious. It denies people political power without taking away their votes. You can still vote all you want, but if the gerrymander is well designed, it won’t matter, since the game is rigged.
I agree with you regarding the dividing-a-city example because there are shared interests and shared local government. My own attempts at drawing districts try to avoid that at all costs for just that reason. However, I do not similarly accept that people of the same race will all have the same views or that people will only vote for, or only be well-represented by, someone of the same racial background as themselves. I think that attitude perpetuates and enables the idea that there are differences among the races whereas I prefer to focus on the inherent commonality of the HUMAN race.
In practice, however, Christopher, there is something to be said for the arguments Marcus makes.
If JC Watts can get elected in conservative rural Oklahoma and Steven Cohen can get elected in majority black Memphis (and defeat a well funded primary challenger attacking him on his race and religion by a margin of 79-19) we no longer need those provisions of the VRA. Historically speaking they were certainly necessary in 1965, when the country was much more divided on race and it was next to impossible for a black candidate to win a majority white district, but that is no longer the case.
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p>That being said, I think preserving the provision that it’s illegal to Gerrymander with the purpose of diluting minority vote is a good idea. Unfortunately Gerrymandering is a bit like pornography, “you know it when you see it”. If the 8th congressional district were to go from 49% non-hispanic white to 51% non-hispanic white, I don’t think the it would make much difference either way, but it could be viewed as an illegal attempt to “shore up the white vote” or something like that.
and its State Representative representation. Christopher, you should know better than that.
that’s in a liberal district? Is that the point you’re making? It seems to support the ‘denied representation’ argument. Please explain.
It used to have it’s own representative. Until they were foolish enough to elect a Republican. Our ever munificent legislature then decided to split Chelmsford into 4 chunks all represented by folks from neighboring towns. Serves them right for voting GOP! (sarcasm, in case that’s not obvious)
Thanks.
I believe we should divide towns as little as possible and Chelmsford was absolutely shafted last time around. It’s comparable to Billerica in population and that town is a single district by itself.
It’s one of the main contributions Massachusetts has made to the world’s political discourse.
we just earned the nickname. You really think that prior to Elbridge Gerry’s actions that district lines had never been drawn with an eye on influencing the outcome?
Link.
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p>I can’t tell if you’re limiting “the rights of all races to vote” to the right to walk into a polling place and cast a ballot without being harassed, paying a tax, or passing a test. If you are, then Marcus is right: you might want to study some history. It’s very interesting.
At first glance what you refer to in your first sentence seems to be exactly what I’m talking about. I thought your link was going to be to the actual language, but I’ll try to make some points regarding the article:
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p>I agree with the 1980 SCOTUS decision as best I can tell from how it’s described. I’m definitely looking for intent rather than result.
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p>As for the factors in the Judiciary report on the amendment, only 1 and 4 strike me as things that should be illegal. The rest may be undesirable and certainly many of those are to me, but they do not demonstrate in my mind a targeted discrimination.
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p>I don’t like at-large or multimember districts for anything above the most local of jurisdictions, because I do think there are legitimately different concerns or interests from region to region. Within a city I think that city needs to decide what is best, but that is a political question not a constitutional one. Mostly, as long as we’re not doing something really silly or offensive like saying a black person’s vote counts as only half a white person’s vote, then we should be OK.
Provincetown to Quincy is a longer drive than anyone would have, much less a Nantucket-to-Quincy distance.
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p>I made a map that kept the Cape and South Coast (NB, FR) together but it done vanished. That makes more sense to me than a repeat of Lynch — a guy from South Boston “representing” East Bridgewater, who kept trying to walk up to garages to talk to voters until a local pointed out that nobody lived in them.
I’m just preserving the current districts. This map is meant to be a political redistricting. I agree that from a neutral point of view, the current 10th is a bit absurd. (As are all the districts in that part of the state.) Currently 6 of the 10 Massachusetts reps live with 95. I think that says a lot.
There’s only one problem with this speculation. Atty General Martha Coakley is going to win Ted’s US Senate seat.
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p>But what of Capuano? He will get a very nice consolation prize. Capuano’s destined to one day become House Majority Leader.
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p>Pagliuca? He’s obviously running now so that he can win another race at some future date.
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p>And, Cosmo’s 1982 Centerfold of the Year, State Senator Scott Brown (R-Wrentham)? Just the latest in a long string of loser candidates the Republicans keep throwing at voters to see what sticks.
So the race is over with then? We can all stop caring about democracy?
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p>Yeesh.
…one of your neighbors take from last December on a Re-districted map.
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p>I thinks it’s a cleaner looking map, doesn’t divide any towns save Boston, and still creates a majority-minority district in the Eight CD.
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p>Take a look.
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p>http://www.redmassgroup.com/sh…
But our current crop of Representatives wouldn’t, as many of their homes are disconnected from their districts. The purpose of my map here is not to present what would be an ideal non-partisan redistricting, but rather what would be one possible redistricting, given certain political considerations.
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p>The one thing that seems a bit overtly political is adding Malden the 8th district, which seems an intentional move to get rid of Ed Markey, who I suspect the author of that post does not care for.
It looks rational, unlike the one at the top of this thread, which looks contrived. Because it is.
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p>Here is the one Cool Cal linked:
The map above is great, and it will probably never happen.
I’m glad there is a western district that doesn’t extend almost to Lowell. I still would prefer all the Merrimack Valley in one district.
Th
That map is just as much contrived… contrived to look reasonable but to lump Congressmen.
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p>Notice the dots… those are the home cities of current Congressmen. So, CD-01 (dark blue) now has two. It’d be just as easy to include Springfield in CD-02 (light brown), so that two aren’t lumped… but the author didn’t. Instead he extended CD-01 eastward along the VT border instead. Somehow I doubt that’s a coincidence.
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p>Then you’ve got McGovern, who lives in Worcester. Move Worcester to the dark brown district since light brown has taken Springfield. If it’s not a perfect fit (and it won’t be), there’s some gray in the Lowell district one could grab as well. Why not? It’s just as lean a line. Because it doesn’t allow the lumping of Congressmen, that’s why.
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p>You get my drift. That map could be redrawn and keep nearly the same lines… but not pit sitting Congressmen against each other.
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p>Now I’m not arguing that the current map (or the one at the top of this thread) is the best one. But, I’m not one who believes that creating a map which maximizes congressional district compactness is the best map either.
First, but quotoing the Author of this Map (MerrimacMan on RMG) from the original post:
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p>Now, that was written last December, and so things have changed.
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p>* Capuano, not Markey, is running for U.S. Senate, and since this thread is prefaced on Capuano winning the U.S. Senate Senate, (I don’t think that will happen, but anyways), let’s, for the sake of argument swap Capauno for Markey in the above scenario.
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p>*There’s simply no reasonable way Olver and Neal are staying out of the same district. One of them has to retire (probably Olver, who’s 306 now) or there will be a Death-match in 2012. The four western counties COMBINED have barely 800K. A CD will need over 710K.
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p>* Another scenario is you have a race of Steve Lynch vs. someone (Delahunt, Capuano, or Markey) which, based on many readers comments on this blog, many of you wouldn’t exactly cry a river over if Lynch lost his seat.
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p>The end result is 8 of 10 incumbents stay as-is, one retires (probably Olver) and one moves up to Senate or loses in a Primary.
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p>We then have a new open seat where some new blood can come in.
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p>You also finally have some reasonably clean CD lines instead of the abominations we have now.
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p>Look at the map. Both of them live right near the border. It wouldn’t be hard at all to push one over to “CD-02” by moving light brown westward in one place and blue eastward in another.
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p>It’s true, that shifts the paring to “CD-02”. From there, it’s a bit more of a stretch, though not at all remarkable, to pull dark brown to Springfield to avoid the pairing there.
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p>And so forth.
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p>2. Same for Neal and Springfield with 150,000 people.
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p>3. So if it’s not Olver vs. Neal, as in your scenario, then it’s Olver or Neal vs. McGovern instead.
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p>Anyway you cut it, the three western-most congressmen have to be lowered to two, and again Olver retiring is probably the most likely outcome.
and unfortunately clicked the tab closed when I was almost finished. Your conclusion is locked in if and only if you insist on putting Worcester in the “western” part of the state. If you allow for Worcester to be in a third district which points eastward with the more rural areas tied to the two western MA districts, the problem is avoided.
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p>Roughly speaking, here’s what I did (I emphasize rough, though when I did it the populations were within a few thousand of exact):
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p>CD-blue: Berkshire, Hampshire, Franklin, northern Worcester county, and a taste of NW Middlesex (Olver)
CD-light brown: Hampden, southern Worcester, smidge of Norfolk (Neal)
CD-dark brown: like yours, but stretch west to get Worcester proper (McGovern) which makes it more compact as it gives up south inland.
CD-gray: like you have it, but slightly closer into Boston to make up for what it lost to dark blue (Tsongas)
CD-yellow: the same, but my calculations came up with -20k population. No biggie, we’re in “rough” territory. (Tierney)
CD-dark green: less to the NW, more to the S, including the parts of Boston south of the eastern edge of Brookline (about five neighborhoods, and again, it was “rough”) (Frank)
CD-dark blue: Some of what was dark green and almost entirely north of the Charles (Markey)
CD-light green: the rest of Boston and points south (Lynch and Delahunt)
CD-red: whatever’s left in the Cape and Islands and near RI border.
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p>So that worked out with only a single pairing and still kept things pretty dang compact, and pretty close to your map, but when the Congressman who lives sixth farthest from Beacon Hill lives in Salem it’s quite a challenge. If you still have the raw data from your map, try it. Note that I don’t find county lines to be particularly meaningful, but tried to respect them to some extent because it’s clear your map valued them. Since MA has devalued county government over the past few decades they seem more of a historical footnote than relevant with respect to representing the diversity of the Commonwealth.
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p>But there is a philosophical question: what do we do with a tight urban area and then the rural area around it? Consider the simplest case: two districts, one urban area. Do we split the city in two, and give each of the two districts urban, suburban, and rural populations which are about equal in each, or do we make one district an urban circle, and make the other district “the rest” — a large, rural district? New Hampshire chooses the former: they’ve got two CDs, each running N-S and containing a handful of New Hampshire cities each. Consider the population density map of NH:
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p>And the CD map:
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p>One could easily imagine instead a single district in the SE, like CD-01 but shave off the top 50% or more of the CD in exchange for picking up Nashua and Manchester. In fact, just two counties — Hillsborough and Rockingham — total almost exactly 700,000 people.
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p>One congressional district would be urban, with an area of 1686 sq miles. The other district would be rural, with an area of 7664 square miles… four and a half times larger.
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p>Your map of western and central MA does something like what NH does now — roughly equal area for CDs 1 and 2, and “split” the cities. I do the opposite — I make Olver’s quite rural, Neal’s comprised of small cities, and McGovern’s containing the large (in this context) city of Worcester and the vast suburbia to the east. It’s absolutely true that my choice of philosophy was shaped by the homes of the sitting Congressmen, but I suspect your philosophy was too, with a very different outcome in mind.
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p>P.S. Given that Boston is smaller than a single congressional district, why is it considered OK on this thread to slice up Boston but not other cities or towns?
Greater Boston has to be split, but Greater Springfield, Greater Worcester, Greater Lowell/Lawrence, and Greater Fall River/New Bedford would ideally each be undivided within a single CD. As for NH, I’d prefer to draw a more/less straight line from east to west at whatever point that would make for equitable population north and south of that line.
“Let’s keep something like what we have now, because of where the reps we have now live,” I don’t find that a compelling argument. Minor changes to the borders of the districts in this map are OK, but if the only reason for doing it is so incumbents are preserved, that’s not enough of a reason.
I would favor a move to neutral commissions nationwide by have mixed feelings about implementing unilaterally here without a federal law requiring them.
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p>For the General Court districts, on the other hand, I strongly support an apolitical commission.