They will continue to vote both blue and red. “The voters of the fourth will continue to come from urban, suburban, and farmland communities. “I am thrilled that all of Fall River will now be in the district.”Īuchincloss said he’s worked with local officials and state lawmakers to ensure Fall River bounces back from the pandemic. “Though the basic contours of the 4th District persist, there is one major change,” Auchincloss said in a written statement. “The Coalition for Social Justice and Drawing Democracy spoke with many community members about redistricting, and we heard loud and clear that they didn’t want Fall River to be split between two congressional districts, and that they wanted Fall River and New Bedford to be united in the same district,” said Dax Crocker, Democracy HUB Coordinator for the Coalition for Social Justice, a Drawing Democracy Coalition Steering Committee member.Īuchincloss welcomed the proposed new congressional district lines.
As a result, the group said, Fall River residents might continue to see their voting power weakened by wealthier suburbs of Boston, like Brookline, Newton and Wellesley. While the map proposed by the Legislature unites Fall River, it puts the entire city in the 4th District and keeps New Bedford in the 9th District. The group had argued that the similar immigrant communities in the two cities should be placed in the same district to increase their political clout and provide a better opportunity for voters there to elect candidates of their choice. The Drawing Democracy Coalition, an umbrella group of advocacy organizations, faulted the map for failing to combine Fall River and New Bedford into the same district. One point of contention came in the state’s 4th Congressional District, currently held by Democratic U.S. That sidesteps the need to combine districts and potentially force incumbent lawmakers to square off against each other. The map avoids any large-scale dramatic shifts in district lines, in large part because the state retained the same number of congressional districts - nine. This is just one of multiple changes proposed by the legislature in an attempt to bring more political power to minority groups in the state, by reforming districts to have more robust minority populations.īOSTON (AP) - State lawmakers released a proposed new map of Massachusetts congressional districts Monday. You can see the district distinctly shifts a bit eastward. Redistricting PlanĬompare that to what the district would look like if these redistricting plans came to pass. You can see a current map of the Hampdens District when it comes to voting for state senators, the yellow area. Senate gearing up for spending bill rollout Current Map