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.
More beneath the flip.

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.

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