After nearly a year of trepidation and fear the new maps for Massachusetts’ congressional districts are out. At first glance I hate them. On a second look, I can live with them, but would demand some basic changes and offer a few desires to make the map better. I’ll leave the minutiae of what goes where to Wicked Local’s roundup of the details, but offer my thoughts generally.
First of all let me offer some thoughts on what happened in Western Massachusetts. It does seem that the redistricting committee decided to split the difference on the Western Massachusetts questions. They left two districts in Western Mass (and for all intents and purposes two districts overall west of 495). That is okay, but the method by which they did it seems strange. The question was whether Western Mass would become one solid district (which would kill whichever Democrat had the misfortune to have all of Worcester County) or find a way to keep two seats in Western Mass. They chose the latter, but missed the reason why the Springfield area and the rest of Western Mass want to remain separate.
Both areas are Democratic, but in different ways. The Springfield area is the old blue-collar type Democrats and the rest of Western Mass has a more progressive tinge. There’s a little bit of both in each segment, but they are not identical. In drawing the districts as they did, they essentially divided the progressive part between Neal and McGovern. There were rumors that McGovern’s new district would reach deeper into Western Mass, possibly far enough to pickup Pittsfield, where Andy Nuciforo lives and with it much of his former territory. Moreover, the liberal college towns of Northampton and Amherst go better with the Berkshire towns than with the metropolitan Springfield area.
Elsewhere the district lines seems okay, but make critical mistakes. Little is done to breakup the concentration of Congressman in the Boston area. Sure Lynch and Keating now have to go head to head, but you will still have no matter what four Congressman within ten miles of the statehouse dome.
Perhaps the most troubling part for me is how cities and towns are split up. I don’t like that unless you’re dealing with a city of considerable size like Boston. It generates confusion needlessly and diminishes a communities clout rather than strengthening it, unless again you are huge like Boston. To that end it only makes sense that if we wanted to firm up the Majority-Minority District, we could have done so without chopping up Cambridge or Milford. Additionally, it seems like a Minority-Majority district could be accomplished more compactly than the new one was written. While not in the context of the majority-minority district, the concern about chopping up districts remains true of Raynham, Andover and Fall River and especially a city of a decent minority population like Fall River.
As much of a fan of Barney Frank as I am, his district should not be sprawling from Brookline to southern fishing towns least of all to the division of, again, Fall River. Lynch’s inland Lobster Claw is only deepened and seems like an attempt to preserve for another ten years the district that JFK once held. With McGovern freed up from needing towns South of Boston, a new district with the South fishing towns and gateway cities could have been created and with it new possibilities while South Boston accept the inevitable and stop having its own district. Frank could snap up some white pieces of Boston (to keep the Min-Maj city).
Elsewhere Tierney’s, Tsongas’, Markey’s and the new South Shore/Cape District seem pretty okay, carved up towns notwithstanding. They shore up some reps without running afoul of any community of interest concerns or creative district geometry.
She lost Tewksbury and Billerica, two immediate suburbs of Lowell, and Andover got split – not my preference.
Some points I did not pick up on or, admittedly, as a Western Mass resident, I was aware of. I agree on the splitting of towns. Unnecessary and unacceptable with the possible exception of Boston.
is not good. We had a good working relationship between the Dems/pols/people in the towns that surround Lowell, and this sort of makes it necessary to go separate ways in many things. I’d rather lose Haverhill, I feel we have nothing in common geographically with them, we don’t interact politically or really as towns, though Haverhill is sort of a similar city to Lowell I guess. I’d rather not have lost Tewksbury or Billerica instead. Though, Billerica…you can make a good argument for getting them off our backs. 😉 Haha.
I agree, that’s not good.
Ask Chelmsford how it is to be split between Reps (in their case, state Reps). I do not feel they are well represented. Sure, you could make an argument that having part of three Reps to advocate for you is better than one whole one, but I don’t think that’s been the case.
Of course, if you left Chelmsford intact as a state Rep district, it’d pretty much assuredly go Republican. But let them, for heaven’s sake. It’s THEIR town!
divided into two districts, splitting our 4,521 voters more or less in half. Funny thing is, we only have one polling station. I’m in the northern district and have Ellen Story as my state rep. The southern district has John Scibak.
All of our Democratic Town Committee–not a lot of people, I admit–live in Ellen’s district. As Democrats, we have an interest in both seats, but not enough workers to work two campaigns. As voters, we have no need to support Scibak. And since we now have a smaller block of voters in what are now larger districts, we have even less clout.
Keating isn’t actually from Quincy anyway, so moving down to the new ninth district is more natural than trying to duke it out with Lynch, since it’s more or less the descendant of his current district.
My very first impression of the new Congressional map was that the legislature made a conscious effort to tie Randolph into Capuano’s district to help ensure it would have a majority of people of color. This is striking because the legislature’s House redistricting map continued to split Randolph’s diverse electorate into three much whiter, much more economically comfortable districts in order to protect incumbents. So which is it redistricting committee?
Also to mski011’s point above, I think combining the South Coast, Cape, and lower South Shore makes far more sense than giving pieces of the South Coast to McGovern would have been. I do agree it would have been better if Fall River were not split though.
I did not mean to suggest any South Coast communities should be in McGovern’s district. I just meant the South Coast (the term eluded me when I wrote the above) should be in its own district with maybe Brockton or Tauton or both. Together that region seems like a community of interest. That the South Coast, South Shore and Cape were combined is better than McGovern’s old district, I just think it could have been better than the proposed map, too.
I don’t think they care all that much about Randolph as such, they care about Boston. The eighth-now-seventh Congressional district has been a minority majority district for some time, and if you want to expand outwards to gain some extra minority votes, Randolph is one of the more black suburbs of Boston.
First, John Olver deserves our thanks for retiring, so that Jim McGovern would not have to go against him in a primary, which would not only waste time and money, but would be a very tough choice for left-wing voters to make.
Districts must have about equal populations. They are always “funny-shaped” because some areas are densely populated and some are not. Midwestern states, where cities, towns, and counties are a lot more straight and square on the map than here, also have “funny-shaped” districts that split communities.
Losing seats is a bad thing, but the proposed map of districts ought not to be opposed. It provides the best chance to keep the incumbents in, which is to be favored at this time.
In this state, both “blue-collar Democrat” types and “college town progressive” types could be attracted to voting for politicians who tend to have populist economic policies and more libertarian social policies.
I believe that the idea that there are irreconcilable differences between the “blue-collar” and “white-collar” people is a false, destructive myth.
I don’t think they are incompatible I just think they reflect different characteristics of Western Mass.
Specifically, you complain:
Pray draw me a map in which this is not possible.
Its the Hub and Spoke nature of the districts. Although Boston is the “Hub” the districts sometimes seem like pieces of a pie with the Congressmen all living at the narrowest point of the pie. I know the Congressional districts will be clustered near Boston, but do the actual Congressman all need to be? That’s the point.
I guess this is less a lament of cartography and more one of where Congressmen choose to live and there’s nothing I can do about that. However, that ten miles thing was something the Redistricting heads did talk about and if Keating were to move to Bourne it would diffuse the concentration a little.
I do not like this map.
From a communities of interest perspective, all sorts of things are being split up in bizarre ways. Cambridge split up in a way that doesn’t seem to make any sense. Fall River split again…in such a way that Frank goes from essentially representing one half of the city to representing the other half. Leominster and Fitchburg in different districts. And what’s with Metrowest?
From a partisan Democrat’s point of view….I don’t like how much of a massive Democratic vote sink that Markey district is. I’m really worried about that North Shore district. I’m not thrilled about the new district either..that’s a *lot* of Republican towns for just New Bedford and half of Fall River to counter.
Crunching the numbers to see if that’s validated.
Hi everyone,
(First time writer, long time reader…)
My name is Bill and I am the Town Committee Chair in Walpole,
We have moved from Lynch to Frank’s district. Lynch usually does very well here getting 68% in 2010. We usually vote Republican 60-40 for Governor, Our State Senator lives in town and is a Democrat and we are gerrymandered so badly that our towns 8 precincts are split between 4 reps, 3 dems and Dan Winslow. Now that we are in Barney’s district (as we have been in the past) I was looking at the wider 4th Cong. Dist. and I think Barney might have an even harder time winning in 2012 then in 2010.
I have read the simmiler post about redistricting by our good friends at RMG
And I think some of their observations are worth noting. The GOP has “at least 6 GOP State Reps and 1 state Senator in that proposed district.” and two or three of them where changes in 2010. Also the Entire Bristol and Norfolk State Senate District is now in the 4th Cong. The B&N is one of the most precariously held Dem senate districts in the state, and we retain it mostly due to the efforts of our VERY Moderate State Senator. RMG notes to that the addition of “Wrenthem and the Attleboro’s make the GOP more competitive” in the District. So this may be a Dog Fight next year and one with Senator Ross or Rep Winslow running as the Republican.
Also Richard Tisei is going to run against Tierney?
Barney Frank’s district got more compact — he lost New Bedford and other Southernmost tip, and he gained Needham, thickening up his peninsula toward Boston. Of course, he also gained the shoulder near RI. I think the re-draw is an improvement of CD-04. The fact is, Cape and Islands can only have so many more people in it, after that it’s got to go elsewhere, and Barney Frank represents the SW suburbs.
I hate what they did with Lynch and Capuano. They should have just given Southie and the North end, etc. to Capuano, and redistrict those two together. Capuano’s district extends too far south, and Lynch’s district’s U shape to get around it is pretty silly.
In general, the districts are more compact than they were the last go-round, and that’s a real positive. Radical redraws aren’t a good idea IMO, because it forces too many people to develop a relationship with a new congressman, and it forces congressmen to re-learn too much of their own constituency. Instead, changes which move the map in the right direction are the way to go, and I think this map is reasonable on that front. It ain’t perfect and I hate Lynch’s new district [and Capuano-south], but so it goes.
P.S. It’s almost impossible to avoid splitting up some smaller communities — it’s a necessary trade for more compact, more sensible districts. Also, I find the comments “Little is done to breakup the concentration of Congressman in the Boston area” and “Perhaps the most troubling part for me is how cities and towns are split up. I don’t like that unless you’re dealing with a city of considerable size like Boston. ” Why, a few sentences later, it was even suggested that Barney Frank gain a piece of Boston too! It didn’t shock me that these sorts of comments came from someone from Western Mass, that’s for sure.
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Thanks so much for the link!
I didn’t expect much change, but the 1st Middlesex (Lowell and western suburbs) is now in Manning’s rather than Devaney’s district.
Needham has been moved from Stephen Lynch’s district to Barney Frank’s districts.
This is good for both Lynch and Frank. Needham voted for a relative unknown in the democratic primary against Lynch last time — Needham, as a whole, did not like Lynch. I’m sure the feeling was mutual.
Whereas it’s likely that Needham being in Frank’s district will likely increase support for Barney.
I like Frank, but overall, I’m against things being too easy for any incumbent. And this change will likely make it easier for both of them.
On the other hand, it puts more like-minded towns together, both in Lynch’s and in Frank’s new districts. Very diverse districts make things harder on incumbents, which I think is a good thing.
His district has changed by upwards of 50%. New people means hard work, no matter how liberal or conservative people are. We can call towns “liberal” or “conservative” all we want, but ultimately they’ll probably vote for the candidate that they get to know the best… Frank’s always been great at getting to know constituents, but that’s a lot of people to ‘meet’ in a year’s time, especially given his age.
Nitpicking a little bit — but as for Lynch and Needham not liking each other, I think that’s up for debate. What the last election showed was that Lynch and Needham *Democrats* didn’t like each other. That’s it.
I’m sure Lynch didn’t mind the swap, in case he has another primary, but I’m also not thrilled with the concept of swapping towns because a town doesn’t like a politician. The better case for why Needham’s out of Lynch’s district now has to do with geography. Newton’s the heart of Frank’s district and Needham’s right next door, with a similar make-up and values shared by its residents. That’s why it makes sense to me.