Describe your state legislative district/districts

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'll start. I'll do my home-home (Greenfield) districts because I know very little about the ones I'm currently registered in.

My Massachusetts Senate district is the "Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester" district (Massachusetts legislative districts are named, unsystematically, after the counties they're in), but only includes one town in Worcester County, Royalston. The rest of the district comprises the northern and central parts of the Pioneer Valley and the Hampshire and Franklin parts of the North Quabbin region. The largest communities, in order of size, are Amherst, Northampton, South Hadley, and Greenfield; everything else is well under ten thousand people. With the exception of the town of Colrain, the western part of the district stops abruptly where the Hill Towns start. Economically and culturally the district is dominated by higher education and some agriculture. The largest employers are the Yankee Candle flagship store in Deerfield, Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Smith College in Northampton, and a wholesale grocery in Hatfield. I assume UMass Amherst is among these too but for some reason it's not on EOLWD's list, possibly because it's public-sector.

My state senator is Amherst’s own Stanley C. Rosenberg, who is currently President of the Massachusetts Senate. Rosenberg is openly gay and is both the most prominent LGBT officeholder in Massachusetts after Barney Frank’s retirement and the most powerful figure in state government from Western Mass. I met him briefly at an event for students interested in public service when I was at UMass. Politically Rosenberg is a standard liberal Democrat with particular interests in LGBT issues, foster care and adoption (he was raised in foster care), and the arts. In general I'd say I like Rosenberg but I'm not certain about his ethics. The district is titanium D and last year was the first time since 2008 that Rosenberg actually had an opponent; he beat Donald Peltier, a South Hadleyan previously best known for soliciting political donations through fake RNC and DNC websites, 82-18.

My Massachusetts House district is the “Second Berkshire” district (even though much, possibly most, of it is in Franklin County), an abomination that stretches from Northfield on the Connecticut River at the tripoint with New Hampshire and Vermont westward along the Vermont border and then down through the Berkshires to the northeastern corner of Pittsfield. It was apparently drawn to disfavor a state representative named Denise Andrews by taking Greenfield out of her North Quabbin district; she subsequently lost reelection to an Athol-based Republican stainless steel equipment manufacturer named Susannah Whipps Lee, who formally goes by "Mrs. Whipps" even though Whipps is her maiden name (FF move imo). (Full disclosure: I was invited to Andrews's 2014 election watch party, liked her a lot, and was there when she lost. Felt bad, man.) It’s difficult to generalize about Second Berkshire because its shape makes so little sense; I know a lot about the "horizontal stroke" but practically nothing about the "vertical stroke". Other than Greenfield and the corner of Pittsfield it’s very rural, for the most part hilly and forested. I’ve occasionally fantasized about running in this district at some point because parts of it follow the Mohawk Trail between Greenfield and North Adams, a route I’m very familiar with, but looking at the map it takes in less of the Mohawk Trail than I thought and also I didn’t comport myself well when I held local office in Amherst and there’s video evidence of my not doing so. I assume the largest employer is the Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, unless there’s something in the corner of Pittsfield that I’m unaware of. The biggest cultural event in the district, outside of Greenfield, is probably the annual Heath Fair in Heath, north of Charlemont.

My state representative is Paul W. Mark, a Verizon technician and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers figure from the town of Peru just east of Pittsfield who holds degrees from five different colleges, all of which I believe he earned taking classes at night and on weekends while working full-time. He’s a loyal Democrat but compared to Rosenberg is more economics-focused and locally attuned (obviously, since unlike Rosenberg he’s not in party leadership or a position of statewide power). I like him as far as I know him but he’s pretty low-profile both compared to Rosenberg and compared to some other state representatives in my area. The district is currently safe D but most of it trended towards Trump last year and will probably continue to trend Republican in the future, at least in federal races, unless the Democrats have a major attitude adjustment. I’m actually not sure if Mark had an opponent in 2016 because I voted in Newton, but he didn’t have one in 2012 or 2014. He did in 2010, his first election, and won 63-37. Currently he and Whipps are trying to pass a bill defining succession for lieutenant-gubernatorial vacancies.

All of these people are UMass alumni in some capacity or another except for Whipps, who went to Fitchburg State.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I forgot to mention that Rosenberg has this fascination with Pskov Oblast in Russia and is always trying to establish economic and cultural links between Western Massachusetts and Pskov.