It’s a Monday afternoon at the Massachusetts State House, and the third-floor office of Governor Deval Patrick is crammed with legislators, aides, community organizers, activists, and journalists. Patrick plants himself at his desk, in front of a three-page bill awaiting his signature and a constellation of blue-and-gold pens. (He’ll sign a portion of his name with each and hand them out as keepsakes.) It is, at first blush, a familiar Beacon Hill tableau: a governor about to execute his constitutional duty; lawmakers who worked on the bill looking on approvingly; interest-group leaders eagerly awaiting its addition to the books. Patrick makes light of the conspicuous lack of suspense. “You’re all holding your breath,” he says, “like you don’t know how this is going to turn out.”
Mass. voting maps reflect State House evolution
Globe Magazine
In fact, many in the room could be forgiven for waiting until the ink dries before exhaling. So unlikely is this moment, and so remarkable the assemblage of people here sanctioning this new law, that few would have believed it possible a year earlier.
Patrick hands the first pen to the man standing over his left shoulder, state Representative Michael Moran, a Brighton Democrat wearing a blue shirt, yellow tie, and dark jacket. It is Moran, more than anyone else, who exemplifies the sea change that explains the bonhomie. For the first time in decades, the Legislature, led by Moran and his counterpart in the Senate, managed to create new state legislative and US congressional districts that by and large put the voters’ interests above the politicians’. You ask: Shouldn’t it always be that way? Of course it should. It just never is.
In a political culture long known for its reflexive acts of self-preservation, the joint legislative committee in charge of redistricting – and by extension the legislative leaders – accomplished something historic. In short, they got it right. Did it leave some people angry? Certainly. Was the process entirely apolitical? Please. Still, the redistricting exercise and the maps it produced were such a vast improvement over years past that a new standard has been set, and much higher than anyone realistically expected. “Night and day doesn’t even begin to describe it,” says Cheryl Clyburn Crawford, co-director of the civic organization MassVOTE, comparing this cycle with the last one, a decade ago.