This will never happen and objectively should not happen. But I thought I’d play around with a map which achieved a few things. First it eliminate John Tierney who is an embarassment to the party and state. Second it creates a south shore district just like Tom Finneran infamously theatened to do when he was Massachusetts House Speaker and trying to rattle Marty Meehan’s chain by threatening to eliminate his district. Third reconnect Cape Cod with southern Bristol county. Fourth create a true Boston district. And fifth make the districts prettier since the current ones are just damn ugly.
And we all know aesthetics have no place in redistricting.
CD 1: John Olver (Green)
Stays the same except grows to take in some more of distant Boston exurbia. Perhaps should’ve given Neal more of the college towns.
CD 2: Richard Neal (Dark Blue)
Takes a little Olver territory to the west of Springfield. Loses Northampton which was a mistake. Might make the district a wee bit more Republican. But district is otherwise pretty similar to his current one.
CD 3: Jim McGovern (Grey)
McGovern’s district goes east to become a MetroWest district.
CD 4: Barney Frank (Yellow)
This is a district where I wish the presidential data was available as it takes in both liberal and conservative areas. But it does looks a bit like a more northily version of the old Republican Margagret Heckler district whose destruction made for some ugly maps. And even if I screwed it up this certainly is a much prettier district than the rattlesnake Barney current represents.
CD 5: Niki Tsongas (Dark Purple)
As part of the process of destroying Tierney she retains most of her old district but gets the northern former milltowns including Lawrence. Still a district one might worry about in a bad year.
CD 6: Ed Markey / John Tierney / (and Capuano)(Reddish Orange)
Besides his hometown of Salem most of John Tierney’s district is gone and split in a few different directions. He can stay here in a district that is mostly Markey’s old one and get destroyed by a more popular, powerful, and senior member. Or move and try his luck against Niki who should also have an advantage over him.
On the bright side perhaps Tierney will have more time for the family gambling business.
I’m assuming Capuano runs for Senate.
CD 7 (old 9): Stephen Lynch (Teal)
A Boston based district with a non-white majority. He gets the demographics of Capuano’s old district and hopefully adjusts accordingly if he wants to keep his job. And there are plenty of ambitious Boston City Councilors who will be waiting for his first mistep.
CD 8 (old 10): Bill Keating (Light Purple)
Sure you lose Cape Cod but you are replacing it with a whole bunch of other Republican areas. But Brockton and Taunton help. And Keating probably is helped by having more of his base area around him rather than somewhere more distant.
Solely done to create a South Shore district since this is not one I’d feel comfortable with if the seat ever became vacant. It could however be fixed by adding Roxbury and Mattapan
CD 9: Open Seat. (Aqua)
Who in their right mind would create an open seat with Cape Cod if they don’t have to? Well. No one. Which is why it’ll never happen.
But Cape Cod has historically been linked with Southern Bristol County and New Bedford and Fall River hopefully would keep it locked down.
District by district:
MA-01, 02: You can easily make Neal safer by giving him Northampton and sending the red suburbs around Springfield to Olver instead. Good job keeping the heart of both these districts out west.
MA-03: McGovern is going to like any plan that does not give him more of Worcester County, and is probably a decent fit for the MetroWest. This ensures that I’m never going to have a Republican congressman.
MA-04: Less safe for Barney than the old seat but there’s enough of metro Boston that any Democrat should be able to hold this.
MA-05: Might be the weakest seat on the map, but if Tsongas survived 2010 she can probably afford to take a hit.
MA-06: I think Capuano is in here too (he lives in Somerville.) A good plan if taking out Tierney is the end goal, and Capuano runs for Senate.
MA-07: Lynch will hate it, but no one really likes him anyway
MA-08: Probably a wash for Keating. I think he actually lives in this one.
MA-09: Yay! A seat for the Southeast! And this is more Democratic than the current Cape Cod seat, as Fall River and New Bedford are big Dem strongholds. It’s probably D+7.
Incumbent protection won’t let it happen.
and I say why not!!!
I do wonder about two things:
MA-02. While it certainly makes geographic sense to keep the Five College towns together, the 2nd is going to miss Northampton and Easthampton. The scary thing for Democrats is that the Republican-leaning eastern part of the district is growing. (West Springfield and Westfield don’t help either, although a Springfield guy like Neal should do better there than an Amherst guy like Olver.)
MA-05. Niki Tsongas’ district. The towns around Lowell and Lawrence have been voting Republican a lot lately, the new territory you added further weakens the seat, and it looks like Concord and Acton, liberal towns that always turn out, have been taken away.
I would like to see what the new numbers change vs. the projected numbers.
One takeaway I’ve found is that it’s really obvious why the Republicans want to see a minority-majority district. There doesn’t seem to be a way to have a minority-majority seat that doesn’t give the Republicans at least a shot at one or more seats somewhere else.
The Cape isn’t that Republican. The small towns of the Lower Cape are really blue. The Islands are really blue. Falmouth is about as Dem as the state as a whole is.
The reason one worries about Keating is the South Shore (the middle part of the district.)
New Bedford and Fall River are actually a pretty good base for a blue district, something that kind of gets lost in the shuffle because the South Coast (for confused non-New Englanders, the South Coast and South Shore aren’t the same thing at all) has been carved up in so many pieces for so long.
1) No strands from the South Coast to Worcester. I see no need for Worcester and Fall River to be in the same district. Fall River and New Bedford are better communities of interest.
2) The same but as 1 but New Bedford-western Boston suburbs.
It looks like you merged together the current MA-5 and MA-6. This makes sense as then the Merrimack Valley is fully together. This then makes room for a North Shore district.
I also appreciate that Boston is one district.
This map does not guarantee a Tierney loss. In fact, it allows for an even greater part of Tierney’s district to be sucked into Markey’s. Gloucester, Salem, Lynn, Peabody, Saugus, Beverly, Swampscott, Marblehead, Danvers… This district becomes a toss up – and please lets not forget that as lackluster as Tierney’s tenure has been, he has had to campaign to his past few re elections, Markey has not.
MA Dems would seriously risk Markey losing to Tierney in this map.