This is really one of the more curious developments in the silly season that is redistricting. First, we had Scott Brown publicly calling on the MA legislature to create a majority-minority district in Suffolk County. Hilariously, Mike Capuano – who is certainly in a position to know – called to Brown’s attention the awkward fact that
The 8th Congressional District (CD) of Massachusetts already is a majority-minority district that centers around and encompasses the majority of Suffolk County. That has been the case since 2001, after district lines were redrawn and approved by the state legislature of which now US Senator Brown was a member as a State Representative.
Awesome. You would think that following that incident, having once been humiliated by his lack of basic knowledge about the subject under discussion, Brown would be a bit more careful in letting his mouth get ahead of his brain. But no – Brown chose instead to double down on the Osama photos. Fail.
Tragically, MA GOP chair Jenn Nassour apparently did not see Capuano’s letter, and apparently has the same lack of basic knowledge about the MA congressional districts as Brown did. Perhaps this explains the MA GOP’s abysmal performance in the 2010 congressional elections. Anyway, here’s Nassour yesterday in a chat with the Somerville News:
Really, she said, she’d like to see the creation of a so-called majority minority district—where minorities make up the majority of the population—in Suffolk County.
“That is where we really have to focus and make sure that happens,’ she said.
Oh dear oh dear. Jenn: it has already happened. The 8th is a majority-minority district. Here, again, is Capuano with the deets:
- The 8th CD contains the cities of Chelsea, Cambridge, Somerville, and 71.94% of Boston’s population.
- Based on the 2010 Census, the 8th CD is home to 660,414 people. Of that total, 53.15% are non-white. People who self-identify as “Black” make up 19.85% of the total, people who listed themselves as “Hispanic” make up 18.82%, “Asians” 9.85% and all other non-whites (which include multi-racial people, Pacific Islanders, and others) total 4.63%.
When the 8th CD was drawn after the 2000 census by the State Legislature, the goal was to create a majority non-white district. It was a goal I believed in and wholeheartedly supported. I still do today. When the current 8th CD was drawn after the last census, it was the first majority non-white CD in the Commonwealth.
And as far as a “Suffolk County centered” district is concerned, we already have that too in the 8th CD which contains 66.4% of the total Suffolk County population. In fact, Suffolk County accounts for almost ¾ of the 8th CD.
The numbers quite clearly speak for themselves. The current 8th CD is a majority non-white district centered in Suffolk County.
OK. Everybody got it? I don’t know how this can be any clearer.
I guess it doesn’t matter if you are white or black or Asian or Hispanic or whatever if you are not in Suffolk County. Somerville and Cambridge, being in bucolic Middlesex County, do nothing to further the purpose of having a district filled with majority minorities in Suffolk County.
Ms. Nassour and Mr. Brown are fixated on Suffolk County minorities, as they must be substantively different than those minorities out in the suburbs (Middlesex County). I guess that makes sense, as Cambridge and Somerville are in the same county as Lincoln and Carlisle.
Send in the cows.