In case you missed it, the legislature redrew the boundaries for all 200 legislative districts and our 9 (formerly 10) congressional districts this year. And in what seems to be a first in the modern era, almost nobody is complaining. Good government groups, advocates for minority voters, Republicans, and Democrats alike all seem to agree: the legislature did an astonishingly good job. Sure, a few oxes were gored – that’s inevitable. But it seems like the pain was spread around pretty fairly.
There’s a big article on this year’s redistricting process in this week’s Globe Magazine. I’m not going to take the time to summarize it – just go ahead and read it on your own, because there’s a lot in there. Let’s just consider the bit about Pam Wilmot, head of Common Cause Massachusetts and occasional BMGer:
Wilmot’s almost utopian vision for democracy frequently clashes with reality. She’s often in the news for attacking questionable uses of public dollars or some egregious pension deal. Not this time, though. “It’s very gratifying to see the process work so well,” Wilmot tells me. It may not sound like it, but believe me: This is a truly shocking quote from Pam Wilmot.
Suffice it to say that, as vigorously as we criticize our legislators when they give in to hackery and special interests, we should praise them when they put the interests of the public first. Well done, folks.
and I suppose there always will be. I think it would be really interesting to see a list for all 351 cities & towns of the following:
City/Town Name
Population
Actual number state house seats [full]
Actual number state house seats [partial]
Population / 200
Actual number state senate seats [full]
Actual number state senate seats [partial]
Population / 40
My sense [anecdotal, no evidence] is that far too many cities and towns are split up into too many seats. I’d be interested to see those numbers for the 2001/02 redistrict and then for the 2011/12 redistrict to see if things seemed to get better, worse, or about the same.
Your fifth line of requested data should be “Population / 160” – there are 160 house seats. There are two hundred total legislative seats, House and Senate combined.
Let’s look at this criteria based on the beloved Town of Arlington, Massachusetts, population (2010 census) 42,844. The population is about the size of one legislative district.
Under the current apportionment, the bulk of Arlington (15 of 21 precincts) is in the 23rd Middlesex District, represented by Sean Garballey. The current district also contains three precincts in Medford. Four Arlington precincts are in the 15th Middlesex District (Jay Kaufman), which also contains 6 of 9 precincts in Lexington and two wards in Woburn. The remaining two Arlington precincts are in the 24th Middlesex District, which is being vacated by Senator-Elect Will Brownsberger. This district also contains four precincts in Cambridge.
The general consensus was that Arlington was very well served by having three state representatives. A poll that was taken on Town Day asked how many representatives they would like have in the next reapportionment, and most of the answers were split between two and three representatives.
Under the reapportionment plan, Arlington will have two representatives. The 15th Middlesex no longer has any precincts in Arlington. The district gained three precincts in Lexington to unite that town, and retains the two wards in Woburn. The 23rd Middlesex picks up one precinct in Arlington and retains the same precincts in Medford. The 24th Middlesex adds three three Arlington precincts, and drops two Cambridge precincts.
THe four precincts from the 15th Middlesex District were added to the 23rd Middlesex District, and three precincts from the 23rd Middlesex District were moved into the 24th Middlesex District. This was the only controversial part of the redistricting, which precincts were chosen to move to the Belmont-based district. The three precincts that moved are probably the most politically active districts in Arlington.
So, from my perch here in Arlington, I would say that the redistricting was successful. My sense is that Lexington is happy to be unified, and Arlington is happy to have two representatives, although some folks are grumbling over which precincts were moved into the adjacent district.
Nothing is perfect, but this does seem like a very good redistricting. We will know more after the next election.
. . .presumably to protect the seats of representatives in Milton and Quincy. The town will thus be represented by out-of-towners again for another ten years.
Randolph has little in common with the the districts it is attached to. In fact, it is not even contiguous with these districts in any meaningful way. In order to get to the Quincy part of my new district from where I live in Randolph without leaving the district, it is necessary to hike through the Blue Hills.
This is all bad enough. But for the pols to screw the citizens of Randolph once again while they congratulate themselves on how transparent and just they are is a little too much.
I agree with the thrust of the “too many Shenanigans” post.
As someone who is engaged in the progressive activism — the kind that looks upon the Democratic party as more of a problem than an ally — I was terribly dismayed to see that two of the real hotbeds for local activism (the City of Cambridge and the Boston neighborhood of J.P.) were split up between Congressional districts.
Perhaps on the state-level, municipalities are better served by having multiple representatives. But on the national level, I think cities like Cambridge and neighborhoods like JP should have a single Congressional representative. By splitting up Cambridge and JP, you dilute the power of a base of people who are well to the left of the Democratic party.
6,300 is now split in half.
I’m not sure this matters much. We were already too small to really wield much influence. If we are diluted to the degree of the average homeopathic treatment, it doesn’t really matter. And with that said, we’ve never suffered for constituent service.