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Boston City Council passes new redistricting plan; will judge approve?

The Boston City Council voted 10-2 today for a new redistricting map that keeps a largely White part of Dorchester in its old council district.

Councilor Kendra Lara (West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain), who had her own plan, voted against, as did Councilor Julia Mejia (at large), who said the plan ignored the people she was hearing from, but did not specify which people or what their complaints were.

The map, if not appealed by an ad-hoc group of largely South Boston and Dorchester residents and politicians would go into effect for the nine district seats in this fall's primaries and final elections. The group included Councilors Frank Baker, Ed Flynn, Michael Flaherty and Erin Murphy, all of whom put their money where their mouths are, collectively contributing tens of thousands of dollars to pay the lawyer who convinced a federal judge to throw out an earlier plan.

The council was forced to re-draw lines because of the 2020 federal census, which showed a dramatic increase in population in District 2 - South Boston, the South End, Chinatown and downtown.

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Comments

one man, 0.95921 vote

Dorchester

one man, 1.0533 votes

(based on the "ideal" district)

I know this can't be done perfectly.
Also, gross population is not the same as net voter population.

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The Fenway gets screwed.

The people of South Boston are lovely but they live miles away from us, and have an entirely different set of concerns.

I had high hopes for Wu. But she’s getting worse and worse every day.

It’s just one clueless decision after another!

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I keep seeing this but no one seems to be able to explain to me why Wu is responsible for a districting map created by and voted on by the city council.

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Was this one from City Hall or from the City Council?

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Specifically Councillor Louijeune:

On Friday and again on Monday, Louijeune moved quickly through several maps on the table, including one from the mayor, before discarding them in favor of her own, which she then modified after receiving input from the other councillors and public testimony over several hours.

https://www.dotnews.com/2023/councillors-appear-close-redistricting-map

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I have lived in Chicago, Wash DC, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Phoenix and never felt everything was race based.
These redistricting all openly claimed to be based on race. Sad

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You might want to look into the whole Voting Rights Act thing - it's kind of a major deal.

(also, just because people aren't talking about racial impacts of redistricting doesn't mean they're not happening! Most groups looking to disenfranchise specific groups are smart enough not to say it out loud, although that has been changing in the last few years)

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South end not only still split across 3 districts, but now it looks super gerrymandered

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