A recent diary covered the Boston City Council redistricting fracas, arguing that the plan the council narrowly adopted dilutes minority voting power. The data does not support this conclusion. The changes are relatively minor and do not affect the overall racial balance of the districts.
You can see the new and old districts here:
Only 12 precincts move between districts, mostly to accommodate uneven population growth.
Nor do the new lines strengthen Councilor Linehan as much as they could, for whose benefit critics say the changes were made. For those of you who don’t know, Linehan won reelection extremely narrowly last November, with Suzanne Lee, his opponent, winning overwhelming in Chinatown and the South End and Linehan just making up for with a more than 2-1 margin of victory in Southie.
Here are the results in the precincts that are removed from the district:
4-3 197 Lee – 40 Linehan
7-7 87 Lee – 101 Linehan
7-8 64 Lee – 123 Linehan
7-9 69 Lee – 109 Linehan
9-1 275 Lee – 63 Linehan
Total: 692 Lee – 436 Linehan
As you can see, while the two South End precincts were excellent for Lee the other three were Linehan territory. If the map really wanted to shore him up, it could have kept them and shifted more of the South End to District 7.
Nevertheless, the new map is unfair to Boston’s minority voters, for a simpler reason: The old map was unfair and its boundaries are perpetuated. In particular, districts 3, 4 and 5 represent a classic “packing and cracking” scheme to give Black voters in Dorchester and Mattapan one councilor when their numbers are large enough to elect two.
Here are the current demographics of the council districts. All racial stats are Voting Age Population. Racial groups with less than 10% are excluded. Ethnicity of each councilor is guessed from surname, in most cases.
District 1
Population: 73k – 62% White 28% Hispanic
Councilor: Sal LaMattina (Italian)
District 2
Population: 74k – 68% White 15% Asian
Councilor: Bill Linehan (Irish)
District 3
Population: 61k – 39% White 27% Black 15% Asian 11% Hispanic
Councilor: Frank Baker (Anglo)
District 4
Population 61k – 70% Black 19% Hispanic
Councilor: Charles Yancey (Black)
District 5
Population 64k – 40% Black 35% White 20% Hispanic
Councilor: Rob Consalvo (Italian)
District 6
Population 67k – 69% White 14% Hispanic
Councilor: Matt O’Malley (Irish)
District 7
Population 73k – 38% Black 29% White 20% Hispanic
Councilor: Tito Jackson (Black)
District 8
Population 73k – 68% White 15% Asian
Councilor: Mike Ross (Jewish) (Thanks to sethjp for the correction)
District 9
Population 72k – 68% White 15% Asian
Councilor: Mark Ciommo (Italian)
The important thing to note is that minorities have lower participation rates in local elections than whites.
Here is one potential solution that I sketched out quickly in Dave’s Redistricting App. It creates three minority districts and a South End/Chinatown/Lower Roxbury district that could potentially elect a minority.
Here are the demographics of this proposal, again using voting age population:
District 1 (Blue) – 60% White 30% Hispanic
District 2 (Green) – 75% White
District 3 (Purple) – 43% Black 26% Hispanic 15% White
District 4 (Red) – 52% Black 21% Hispanic 18% White
District 5 (Gold) – 56% Black 23% White 15% Hispanic
District 6 (Teal) – 74% White 10% Hispanic
District 7 (Gray) – 45% White 20% Black 16% Asian 14% Hispanic
District 8 (Periwinkle) 70% White 14% Asian
District 9 (Cyan) 68% White 15% Asian
While these lines are just a proof of concept, something similar is probably required under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Given Boston’s history of racial animosity and use of Gerrymandering to minimize minority voting power, we should not allow the current council lines to remain. The council’s changes are only minor tweaks, when a whole scale redrawing is needed.
I get that there are legal requirements involved and of course they should be adhered to, but almost 50 years after the VRA was first enacted I would advocate a reconsideration of those provisions. Drawing by race inherently assumes that interests and viewpoints line up exactly with one’s racial/ethnic heritage. Personally, when I vote I look for the person who thinks like me rather than looks like me. I’d rather draw these lines without knowing what the racial composition of each precinct is, though geographically your proposal looks pretty good too.
The question is whether racial block voting exists in practice in the City of Boston. The District 2 election seems to suggest that it might, though it could also be attributed to wanting someone from your neighborhood rather than of your ethnicity. Of course, in Boston those are often closely tied.
The DOJ has a list of guidelines for determining whether or not to apply section 2. I would argue that some of these apply to Boston, though certainly not all.
What are the names of each Districts’ Bordering Streets?… it would be good to know at what street one District ends and another begins!
a) Districts’ Bordering Streets’ names.
Where are there maps that show the Districts’ Bordering Streets names?… label the names of the Districts’ Bordering Streets so many folks can understand the changes!
b) Online overlays.
Where are there online overlays that compare different maps, different proposed maps?… why keep the information hidden? Use more accurate visual mechanisms with more understandable labels.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/maps/pdfs/ward_and_precincts.pdf
They have not changed since 1920, so while the city council staff perhaps should have done a better job of making everything easily available, the precinct lines are hardly a secret.
Boston City Council Staff Director Ann Hess Braga and Census and Redistricting Committee Liason Christine O’Donnell both refused to make available Redistricting maps with names of Districts’ Bordering Streets. Boston City Council needs cooperative staff willing to make Council Commuinications and Council Information available in more understandable formats.
Boston City Councilor William Linehan and his Chief of Staff David Nagle refused to make available more detailed information about Redistricting or accept suggestions about opening the process to folks not at public meetings. It’s 2012. The Redistricting process should be more open via this medium. Contempt for the people shows in their methods corrupted by their bad unwillingness to receive public enquiries, comment, feedback, suggestions, questions
With all due respect, Marcus, I think you have to do better than this if you’re planning to write with any authority about identity politics. Mike Ross is hardly a newcomer on the scene. And I think that most people that follow Boston politics know that he’s Jewish, not Scottish. His father was a survivor of Dachau, for goodness sake, something that Mike is quite vocal about. In fact he mentions it on his official City Council web page.
Granted, none of this really changes the points that you make in your post, all of which I largely if not wholly agree with. But bizarrely overlooking the minority status of one of city’s councilors gives the impression that you know less about Boston politics than I expect you actually do.
I do not live in Boston, so I am not super familiar with its politicians.