To: The Honorable Michael Moran and the Honorable Stan Rosenberg, Chairs, Massachusetts Joint Committee on Redistricting
From: Cheryl Crawford, Co-Executive Director, MassVOTE
Date: October 25, 2011
Dear Chairmen Rosenberg and Moran,
The new proposed maps for the State House and State Senate dramatically increase the number of majority-minority seats, while keeping many communities together. A few small changes may be appropriate to make the maps even better, but, substantially, these maps mark a major step forward for the cause of voting rights, and I urge you and your colleagues to pass them into law.
As a young girl, I remember family members marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a black woman, a community activist, and a resident of Dorchester, voting rights have always mattered to me. When district lines are drawn to prevent communities from having their say, voting itself means little. That is why the redistricting process has been so important to MassVOTE, and why I am so pleased with the new maps.
For the past ten months, I have met with individuals and organizations across the state as part of Drawing Democracy, a state-wide multi-racial coalition dedicated to promoting a transparent and accountable redistricting process. I heard from people all over the state and they wanted their communities to be united – not split – by district lines. They wanted districts to empower people of color, so that African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos in our state can have a say in state politics commensurate with their numbers in our population.
The State House and State Senate’s proposed maps move us closer than ever before to those goals.
In the State Senate, I want to particularly express MassVOTE’s strong support for the three proposed majority-minority districts, one in Hampden County, and two in Boston. Each of the two Boston districts creates an opportunity for people of color to elect the person of their choice. This is a substantially better choice than creating a single majority-minority district which would pack voters, reducing their overall clout. I note that the Second Suffolk district is improved under this plan by adding more precincts that are majority-African-American and reducing the number of majority-white precincts.
In the State House, MassVOTE is pleased that the number of majority-minority districts has doubled, from 10 to 20. Given that people of color make up roughly 20% of the state population, this new map matches our Commonwealth well.
This process is not over… and for that, too, I am grateful. The two-week comment period – now about half over – invites public participation.
MassVOTE urges you to continue to scrutinize the new maps, to look for ways to increase the percentage of people of color in all these new districts, while maintaining the two senate seats of color in Boston, the additional majority-minority senate seat in Hampden, and the 20 majority-minority seats in the state house.
Thank you for your work so far in this project. The redistricting process will help shape political power in Massachusetts for the next decade. If these maps become law, the Commonwealth will have made a major step forward for voting rights. We look forward as well to seeing the draft US Congressional map, and hope that it expresses the same commitment to racial justice and voting rights by maintaining and improving the Eighth Congressional district, increasing the people of color within that district as much as possible.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Crawford
Co-Director
MassVOTE
They were good events, but frankly I felt a little out of place because the be-all, end-all among the stakeholders seemed to entail categorizing people by race/ethnicity. I do not share that goal since as far as I’m concerned with the 3/5 clause of the constitution rendered moot 150 years ago a person’s vote is worth exactly the same regardless of background and regardless of district.
Your rather naive assumption that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments render any discussion of race/ethnicity of voters moot is not shared by most policymakers and political observers.
Though these Amendments were essential fixes to the odious 3/5ths compromise in the original Constitution, it was about 100 years later when Congress still felt it necessary to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in order to “enforce” the 15th Amendment and to specify the prohibition against states imposing any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure … to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color
In 2011, it is now pretty clear to those responsible for re-districting that the Voting Rights Act prohibits the drawing of district lines that deny minority voters equal opportunity to participate fully in the political process. Most have interpreted this further to require at least careful consideration of race/ethnicity in drawing lines and many see an affirmative obligation to ensure a balanced and “fair” racial/ethnic make-up of every political subdivision as they are drawn-up.
“Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” -MLK, I Have Dream Speech
Why even bother to put R’s on the committee if you’re going to exclude them? I hate fake transparency.
The committee had the chance to create two Lawwrence House districts- Lawrence has enough population (with a tiny slice of Methuen) to be two complete districts.
Instead of doing this simple win-win, they created two North/South majority/minority districts, one of which is all Lawrence and the other Lawrence/Andover/Methuen. This district is about 55/45 minority, but an Andover Dem would win it for sure, and an Andover R (and Rep Paul Adams is moving to stay in his district) will have a chance.
They clearly wanted to keep a slice of Lawrence to help the reelection chance of Rep. David Torrisi, who can’t carry his hometown of N Andover and needs Lawrence.
They also stiffed Andover from becoming one district. Andover is now split into two three community districts, despite a population large enough to be one.
So at least in my area this is a lose-lose, and it’s all about the politics. That’s fine, be political, but stop telling us it’s something else.
equated fairness as creating the best possible scenarios for Republicans to get elected.
Funny you should quote I Have a Dream since I distinctly recall another line from the same speech where King calls for a day that we judge not by the color of one’s skin, but by the content of one’s character. What we have here is the institutionalizing of judging by the color of one’s skin which seems to me to be needlessly delaying the realization of that part of King’s dream. There’s plenty in the VRA that was absolutely necessary and of course nobody should be denied the right to vote on the basis of skin color, but to me a difference in skin color is no more significant than a difference in eye or hair color. The longer we officially treat it as more significant the longer we put off the day that it becomes a non-issue.
But not amusing. And definitely on purpose.
I am disgusted when people cite the “content of their character” line in King’s most famous speech as evidence that MLK would oppose affirmative steps (such as the explicit use of race in drawing political boundaries) that are, I think, still needed to get us closer to his dream of a day when race truly becomes a non-issue. King supported (and would continue to support today, I would humbly suggest) affirmative action, quotas, and even reparations. His famous “Operation Breadbasket” was just one of many examples.
The quote I used is more suggestive than his most famous line of the continuous struggle that King recognized would be needed to be waged for a very long time and perhaps even forever (and see from the I Have a Dream Speech such other lines as: “As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied… and we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.'”)
I see no justice rolling down like waters. I see no evidence that King’s dream is truly realized. And I certainly disagree wholeheartedly with you that considering race/ethnicity in re-districting gets us further rather than closer to the mythic “one day” of King’s speech.
“Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.” – MLK, Why We Can’t Wait