The proposed new districts for the state House of Representatives protect the interests of these two people over those of the 30,000 residents of Randolph.
Look at this proposed map https://malegislature.gov/Redistricting/ProposedDistricts/House. The town of Randolph is again split down the middle. (I say again because Randolph has been broken up since the last millennium) The contiguous areas of Quincy and Milton are parceled out the Ayers and Driscoll, respectively. Then each district snakes through the uninhabited Blue Hills to half of Randolph.
I don’t doubt that there are just enough voters in the Quincy and Milton districts to outvote the voters in each half of Randolph. It’s been that way since the 1990’s. The last time there was an open seat in Milton, Driscoll won with virtually no support from Randolph.
The obvious solution would be to combine West Quincy and Milton into one distuct, since they are contiguous in reality. Try driving around East Milton and West Quincy some time and guessing whether you are in Milton or Quincy. That would give the residents from Randolph legislator from their own town. But that would also mean that Ayers and Driscoll would have to run against each other.
On the State House redistricting map, these two districts (1st Norfolk, 7th Norfolk) are being pitched as some kind of advance for minority representation, instead of incumbency protection, which is what they really are. Here in Massachusetts we interpret Critical Race Theory to the benefit of two white males. Again, Congratulations.
Indeed, this piece is right on the money.
My understanding is that overall the proposed maps increase the number of majority-minority districts, though I suppose the tradeoff is making a few districts even whiter. Of course, I wish we would ditch that metric entirely.
What metric would you prefer?
Letting the chips fall where they may on demographics. However, I’ve been playing around on a couple of do-it-yourself redistricting websites and usually come up with a fair number of majority-minority districts without deliberately paying attention to that. I generally prioritize pre-existing political boundaries, compactness, and sometimes natural features. Each person is worth the same as every other and we should not assume that everyone of the same background is going to vote the same way.
I’m not clear about what you mean when you say “Letting the chips fall where they may on demographics”,
How do you propose to draw the boundaries? I’m not sure about the math (is stomv in the house?), but I think that there is no single unique tiling of the state by however many CDs we are allowed. That means that choices are going to have to be made. If those choices are made by people, then those people will have biases and prejudices. If they’re made by machine, then in all likelihood the biases and prejudices will be even more pronounced — there is already clear evidence of racial bias in face-recognition systems and automated speech transcription. That bias is not because programmers intended it that way, it is because a combination of factors caused the behavior to come out that way.
It seems to me that explicit biases or constraints — “We prefer to increase the number of majority-minority districts”, “The residents of a single town should all be in the same district”, “The boundaries should change as little as possible” — are preferable to unconscious and implicit approaches.
Well, I did say above that I prioritize pre-existing boundaries (i. e. keeping towns undivided as much as possible), compactness, and sometimes natural features. Of course there are choices, but I choose not to look at the demographic make up of a community when drawing the lines. Not sure what facial recognition or speech transcription has to do with this. The drawers don’t look at the individual faces or listen to individual voices when drawing maps. Do you really not think I am capable of drawing lines without knowing or caring which side a concentration of a certain race falls? Ultimately all that really matters is that each district has roughly equal population.
To the contrary — my issue is that you explicitly refuse to consider the demographics of the areas as you draw the boundaries.
Those who refuse to admit that systemic racism exists therefore refuse to admit that black voters have priorities specific to black voters. By drawing boundaries without regard to systemic racism, they suppress the votes of those most motivated to end it.
That is a very effective way to perpetuate their own delusion about systemic racism — whether or not it’s intentional.
It is also racist.
Does a person have less of a right to vote in one district over the other, or does one’s vote count for less if it is on one side of the district line rather than the other? I don’t think so, so it’s not voter suppression. Voter suppression occurs when somebody is not allowed to vote or as a practical matter struggles to be able to vote. It is NOT about whether a person is likely to vote for the prevailing candidate. IMO whether in a partisan or demographic context, mapmakers should not take into account how anyone is likely to vote. You know I hate your generous use of the word racist, but if anything is racist here it seems to me the assumption that people will vote a certain way based on race. This should be about individuals rather than groups anyway, and all voters should avail themselves of opportunities to support the candidate of their choice and try to persuade others to do so regardless of their district.
It also occurs when a district is drawn such that candidates who share the values and priorities of a significant number of voters in the district cannot win.
Is it sexist to say that women are more likely to be concerned about abortion restrictions than men? Surely you accept that a voter’s gender affects their values and priorities.
A voter’s race also affects their values and priorities. A voter’s religious preference affects their values and priorities. Is it anti-Catholic to observe that Catholic voters are more likely to support anti-abortion candidates?
The values and priorities of a voter affects how they vote. It isn’t that a woman voter will only vote for another woman or that a black voter will only vote for another black.
It is instead that a woman voter will vote for a candidate who shares the values and priorities of that voter. The same is true for a black voter.
Whether or not you hate it being said, a process that draws boundaries that demonstrably reduce the likelihood that candidates who share the values and priorities of black voters can win, then that process is racist.
Consider a case where a black neighborhood spans two districts, and where there are enough black voters in each to elect a Representative in each district that shares the values and priorities of those black voters.
Suppose a new district is drawn that encompasses the black neighborhood. It is very likely that the two incumbents will be unseated and replaced by candidates that reflect the values and priorities of the two districts that become majority white as a result of the change. The black neighborhood will now have just one Representative.
The effect of the change is to decrease the number pf Representatives that share the values and priorities of black voters and increase the number of voters that share the values and priorities of white voters.
This is classic gerrymandering. Surely you don’t dispute that it is effective. When the effect of the gerrymandering is to change the balance of black vs white voters rather than Democratic vs Republican, is it any less effective?
We are back to your bugaboo — systemic racism. You assert that it cannot exist, and dislike being led to the inevitable contradiction that your denial creates.
Systemic racism most certainly DOES exist. The process of drawing boundaries to ensure that candidates supported by black voters cannot win is an example of it.
Your example of how to draw lines around a black neighborhood contains precisely the assumptions I don’t want to make. Neighborhoods don’t vote; individuals do. Yes there are sometimes common interests, but that’s not guaranteed. To allude to another example you gave, there are plenty of Catholics who are either pro-choice, or may base their votes on other social teachings that align more with Democrats. Taken to its logical extreme you and I could very easily be presumed to vote Republican if all someone knew about us was our demographic characteristics. I do think gerrymandering has an effect. My whole point is to stop doing that even for what someone might consider a positively motivated reason.
The logical conclusion is not to have districts at all but to have one giant at-large district and then award the top 160 vote getters no matter where they live.
That’s been theoretically possible but most people would rather have a representative nearby to represent their nearby interests.
Once you have any districts at all you are making a decision.
Once you are making a decision you should make the best decision possible
Making the decision to have districts and then claiming you are “letting the chips fall where they may” is trying to have it both ways.
I have already commented on the criteria I would use and stand by that.
Either “letting the chips fall where they may” or maximizing the number of minority majority districts would lead to the same results in this case. Under the current proposal, Randolph is split down the middle, and connected East Milton and West Quincy by a large uninhabited area.
The east west split in Randolph is totally artificial. They are not separate neighborhoods in any way. There is no part of Randolph which has any connection to either West Quincy or East Milton.
As far as demographics are concerned, I haven’t looked closely at the figures for a while, but the last time I looked Milton and Randolph were very similar. West Quincy and East Milton would be roughly the same as far as demographics go.
The reality is, if you have two municipalities in the same district, voters will tend to vote for the hometown candidate. (As an example, look what happened in the special election in Winthrop/Revere last year.) By leaving a white male incumbent in each district whose hometown is likely to support him, you are virtually guaranteeing that each district will continue to be represented by a white male.
Randolph, on the other hand could be an open seat.
Either process should lead to the same result, logically. The only way you can get to the current proposal is to make the interests of the two incumbents paramount.
Agreed, and well said.