US: House Redistricting Massachusetts

[minionofmidas]

Possibly. I don't think such a lawsuit would be all that useful in Massachusetts. But it would be good to know, one way or another, if section 2 requires the creation of 'coalition' districts (as Boston + Chelsea probably is, and certainly much more 'compact' than anything in the South), or if those areas can be cracked, as some are proposing to do.

Almost all of the minority residents of Boston are already in MA-8; adding in the rest of the city won't change that, and you need to keep West Roxbury and Southie out of the district to do what you're setting out to do because they are so non-diverse. So then it becomes a choice of where you go north, and the numbers involved are pretty small. Chelsea and Everett together contribute about 70,000 people, which isn't a lot, and the best place to go after that is back to Cambridge and Somerville, so you're just shifting boundaries on the 8th.

Well, yeah, but that still means the 8th is not abolished.

[minionofmidas]

The 8th as currently configured already is such a district. I think. It's far too small, of course.

[minionofmidas]

Just for show... I can draw the state too. This is supposed to be a makes-sense-on-the-ground, good governance map.



I think these seats - barring the yellow one, obviously - make a lot of sense while still being broadly based on the current ones (the old third abolished); I'd like to have pointers for any obvious mistakes. And for who'd probably run where in the entirely hypothetical scenario of a similar map being enacted.
Three towns split - Boston, Holyoke, I forget what north Middlesex suburb.

[minionofmidas]

There was talk of a minority-pack in Boston earlier. This is what the maximum pack looks like. (District's northern and southern edges in Lynn and Brockton just outside the map.)

34.7% White, 26.3% Black, 23.1% Hispanic, 9.6% Asian. 39.4% White VAP.

[minionofmidas]

In this particular case... Nope. Can't think of anybody.
Oh yeah, possibly some Black state legislator with a bit of outreach beyond his core constituency, once Capuano retires.

[minionofmidas]

Ah, comment!

Just for show... I can draw the state too. This is supposed to be a makes-sense-on-the-ground, good governance map.



I think these seats - barring the yellow one, obviously - make a lot of sense while still being broadly based on the current ones (the old third abolished); I'd like to have pointers for any obvious mistakes. And for who'd probably run where in the entirely hypothetical scenario of a similar map being enacted.
Three towns split - Boston, Holyoke, I forget what north Middlesex suburb.

I think you need to get rid of the southern tail of Middlesex North.  Bring Worcester City-Springfield a bit further east.  Is Massachusetts West (Berkshires-Connecticut Valley-Worcester) all the way to the Connecticut River.  Then bring Norfolk further west, and Middlesex North further south.  Rotate New Bedford-Fall River-Brockton; Plymouth, Cape Cod, and Islands; and Norfolk counter-clockwise.  If you are going to take part of Boston into Norfolk, why not Brookline?

Can't very well bring Worcester-Springfield further east. Well, you can, splitting near suburbs of Springfield off to bring somewhat further removed suburbs of Worcester in, but I don't see the sense behind that (Though the current second begins at Springfield proper and ends just west of Worcester proper. ) - not that I can't be convinced otherwise. You'd need to state your case.
What you could very easily do, obviously, is split the 1st and 2nd here east-west, and then exchange that ugly tail for Leominster. And, yeah, alternatively you could easily get that tail  into the Norfolk district (and I assume the rotate part was about getting the 4th out of Norfolk County? Also possible.) in exchange for areas in southern Middlesex County - the reason I didn't is basically that I didn't think the area belongs with a Boston district either.
Re Brookline... because it would mean an additional split town? (Or, even if you put all of it in the Norfolk seat again, and add, say, Cambridge to the Boston seat, then you're pushing the grey seat out.)

[minionofmidas]

Boston is the only split town.

I want to keep Quincy, and also Randolph, out of the 3rd (former 10th)... which means I can't very well push the 4th out of Norfolk County.

[minionofmidas]

Boston is the only split town.

I want to keep Quincy, and also Randolph, out of the 3rd (former 10th)... which means I can't very well push the 4th out of Norfolk County.

You have put the Berkshires and most of the Pioneer Valley in with the Springfield area. From a community of interest standpoint they are far more similar to northern Worcester County as far east as Leominster and Fitchburg, whereas Springfield is the core of its own little area that kind of spills around the southern border of the state.

Yeah, the reasons why are discussed above.

I am suggesting that New Bedford-Fall River-Brockton include more of inland Plymouth County, rather than slopping over into Norfolk County.  By including the ocean areas the maps make the districts appear more compact.  The Elizabeth Islands have a really tiny population, but including the waters on either side make it look fairly substantial.  So Plymouth, Cape Cod, and the Islands is really a long district following the coast and jumping to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.  So it is no problem to bring it a bit west.  Does it include Quincy?

Not in my map, and it should not. (The current district there does, though, for which Bill Keating is quite thankful.) It includes Braintree in my map, which is really one suburb too close already. If you want to push the red seat south, you need to push the purple seat north. And vice versa.

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I haven't checked the Norfolk (sans Brookline) side, but there's no alignment of Suffolk/Middlesex towns with Boston, that's within 1000 of the ideal population (the target range I'm using on these maps). At least none that's remotely reasonable, and I've looked at options that included Waterbury (but not at any that went beyond that and included none of the Suffolk towns... maybe there is something there. Probably not though.) Much more reasonable to split Boston than to randomly lop off two of precincts from Revere.
The Boston split in the second map is also fairly neat and made it possible to include Brookline with Cambridge etc, of course.

I don't know the district numbers.

Blue is 1st, green 2nd, purple 3rd, red 4th, yellow 5th, cyan 6th, grey 7th, lavender 8th, teal 9th. Standard DRA colors, and also the current district they roughly resemble (apart from the redesign out west in the second map, and the fact that the old 3rd of Worcester city and random points east is abolished, and the 10th renumbered the 3rd.)

[minionofmidas]

There's more people in Quincy than in the entire red share of Norfolk. It took me a moment to find an alignment of towns to prevent a split. Quincy and Milton to purple, Holbrook to teal; the red parts north of the Bristol line, Mansfield and North Attleboro to teal, Avon to red; Abington, Hanson, Halifax, Plympton, Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, West Bridgewater, Middleborough to red, Mattapoisett to purple. I don't like it very much...

[minionofmidas]

Boston is the only split town.

I want to keep Quincy, and also Randolph, out of the 3rd (former 10th)... which means I can't very well push the 4th out of Norfolk County.

You have put the Berkshires and most of the Pioneer Valley in with the Springfield area. From a community of interest standpoint they are far more similar to northern Worcester County as far east as Leominster and Fitchburg, whereas Springfield is the core of its own little area that kind of spills around the southern border of the state. In this respect the current map does very well (except for Northampton and Hadley being in the Springfield district, which is truly bizarre).

It is just about possible to keep two separate districts west of Worcester... it'd have to look something like this (remaining districts not drawn)



Can anybody really want that? I don't think so. Well, the current Representatives for the first, second and third districts maybe.

[minionofmidas]

Can anybody really want that? I don't think so. Well, the current Representatives for the first, second and third districts maybe.

As a native of Franklin County, and current resident of Hampshire County, I for one think that that looks fairly okay, though I confess that the same things that make me attuned to CoE distinctions in the area also mean that I'm not exactly the most objective judge.

The issue is how the Worcester seat runs down the border like that. OK it might do that now but that doesn't make it a good or logical thing.

The only real logical district for Worcester is just one in the middle of the state.

It doesn't need to sneak down into Bristol County, of course. It could run straight east into the Boston suburbs instead. But yeah - any map that keeps a Springfield seat and a Berkshires/Leominster seat screws over Worcester really, really big time. That was true even with ten seats and 2000 figures, it's even truer now.

What is possible is to redraw this map so that the boundary between the first and second runs more nw-se rather than n-s.

[minionofmidas]

There's more people in Quincy than in the entire red share of Norfolk. It took me a moment to find an alignment of towns to prevent a split. Quincy and Milton to purple, Holbrook to teal; the red parts north of the Bristol line, Mansfield and North Attleboro to teal, Avon to red; Abington, Hanson, Halifax, Plympton, Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, West Bridgewater, Middleborough to red, Mattapoisett to purple. I don't like it very much...

If you leave Milton in the teal, how much north of Plymouth/Bay Colony boundary would you need to go with the red?  

I highlighted the part that answers your question.

Though I notice there's a much easier - though not pretty either - solution. Quincy to purple, Braintree to teal, Holbrook and Avon to red; Norfolk/Worcester parts of red to teal; Abington, Whitman and the Bridgewaters to red; Lakeville and Mattapoisett to purple.

[minionofmidas]

And here's Springfield-Berkshire versus Worcester-Franklin-Hampshire:

[minionofmidas]

Avon is part of the Brockton NETMA division so that is fine.

Yah, the nonpretty issue is with Quincy and Braintree. I think that's just barely not land-contiguous, actually.

Avon just gets juggled around a lot between maps because it's the only nicely tiny township for miles around.

[minionofmidas]

Probably too good to be true.

But I guess it's not so unlikely we'll at least get a saner map. That would be something in its own right.

[minionofmidas]

Boston is the only split town.

I want to keep Quincy, and also Randolph, out of the 3rd (former 10th)... which means I can't very well push the 4th out of Norfolk County.

You have put the Berkshires and most of the Pioneer Valley in with the Springfield area. From a community of interest standpoint they are far more similar to northern Worcester County as far east as Leominster and Fitchburg, whereas Springfield is the core of its own little area that kind of spills around the southern border of the state. In this respect the current map does very well (except for Northampton and Hadley being in the Springfield district, which is truly bizarre).

[minionofmidas]

Looks like a solid 9-0 map. And cleaner than the current to boot.

You could draw lines at random and still get a 9-0 map.

If a non partisan judge drew the map, there would still be no competitive CD's in Mass? 

Not unless he decided that one should be drawn. There's really only one way to draw one, outside of 2010 conditions.

[minionofmidas]

2 sort of, none really - teal as pointed out, and purple is about as safe R as can be drawn in Massachusetts. The others are all very safe D.