Redistricting and Barney's Version
Martin G. Evans
It was sad to hear of Barney Frank's retirement from
politics. He has been a reliable liberal voice in the house for over 30 years.
It was even sadder to hear his complaints about the
Massachusetts redistricting results.
For the first time in a generation, the Redistricting process
in Massachusetts was open and transparent. Meetings were held by the Joint
Committee on Redistricting across the state so that ordinary people could
provide their fine-grained input about where sensible boundaries might be
drawn. Common Cause even held a contest so that individual citizens could
design maps using publicly available (at no cost) on-line software. The results
can be seen here:
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=7751111
The Redistricting Committee had to consider several important
constraints:
•
Districts had to be of equal size
•
Districts had to fulfill the Commonwealth's
obligations under Federal law
•
Districts as far as possible should be:
•
compact
•
not split other political divisions (e.g., towns
or cities)
•
keep communities of interest together
Finally, in a perfect world, districts should not reflect the
preferences of the incumbents
Frank is reported as saying that “If the district had been
substantially similar, I would have felt obligated to run again.”
This year, with Massachusetts having lost a Congressional
seat, it was impossible to create districts that were substantially similar to
those designed a decade ago. In the process, legislators and common people
alike had the chance to argue for their preferred district boundaries.
This year the Committee did a good job of meeting the formal
criteria
This year, these new districts give the public a chance to
chose their Representatives rather than fulfilling the old cliché: “The
Representatives choosing the voters they prefer.”
Gerrymandering is dead in Massachusetts..
