Officials wary of fallout from Boston's redistricting woes

Some officials south of Boston are worried that court-ordered redistricting of House districts in Boston will affect suburban districts, too.

"I'm sure we'll be affected, but what the effect will be we just don't know," said James G. Mullen Jr., Milton's town clerk and chairman of the Board of Selectmen.

James F. Burgess Jr., a Randolph selectman, said the Legislature might try to carve up Randolph more than it already is to solve its problems in Boston.

"I believe you are going to see the Legislature still try to protect the incumbents," said Burgess, who sued the state after the current district lines were established in 2001. "When that happens, it doesn't bode well for the citizens of the Commonwealth."

Last week, a three-judge federal panel threw out the state House of Representatives' district map for Boston. The court ruled that the lines the Legislature approved two years ago for the 17 districts in Boston had disenfranchised minority voters in the city.

One of the districts singled out by the court was the 12th Suffolk, which extends from the Dorchester and Mattapan sections of Boston to three precincts in Milton. The district, now represented by House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran of Mattapan, gained white voters when it was stretched south from its heavily minority urban base to largely white areas of East Milton.

The Legislature has six weeks to draw new district lines. Secretary of State William F. Galvin has said the changes could affect 30 or more districts.

Joseph P. McEttrick, a Suffolk University law professor and former Milton selectman, said Milton and other suburbs could become more fragmented in the process.

"The real problem is that once you make changes in the core, it has domino effects," McEttrick said. "Everything is in play, in one sense."

Finneran and other legislative leaders have been noncommittal about how they will approach the task, other than to say they will comply with the court ruling.

The plaintiffs in the court case, a coalition of Boston civil rights groups, contend that the problems in the Boston districts can be remedied without forcing big changes on the suburbs.

"It could affect a few precincts here and there, but it is not going to have a big impact south of Boston," said George Pillsbury, policy director for Boston VOTE, one of the organizations that brought the court case.

Pillsbury did say that the lines in Milton will have to be redrawn to increase the minority presence in Finneran's district. The problem could be solved by putting one or two of Finneran's Milton precincts in the district of Representative Martin J. Walsh of Dorchester, according to Pillsbury.

That possibility is unsettling to some officials in Milton, who sued unsuccessfully after the 1990 redistricting, which split the town into three different House districts.

"To get to Marty Walsh, Milton would be an island," said Charles J. McCarthy, a Milton selectman. He said he fears Milton could become as fragmented as neighboring Randolph, which is in three different legislative districts.

Burgess said he doubts that the Legislature would graft a section of Milton onto Walsh's district. The Randolph selectman said it is more likely that Finneran's precincts would be given to Representative Walter F. Timilty, Democrat of Milton, who would lose the part of his district that is in Randolph.

Burgess, who dropped his lawsuit against the 2001 redistricting after he concluded it would not succeed, said he would like to see Randolph's fragmentation corrected in the current process.

He pointed out that Randolph is the most racially diverse community in the Boston suburbs and also the most populous municipality in the state that does not have its own state representative.

In other communities bordering Boston, there is less concern about the redistricting.

City Clerk Joseph P. Shea of Quincy said the only district that could be affected in his city is the First Norfolk, now represented by Bruce J. Ayers of North Quincy. That district borders Walsh's at the Neponset River bridge.

"If they squeeze districts out of Boston, it could come into Quincy, but it will be a stretch," Shea said.

James A. MacDonald, a Dedham selectman, said he does not believe that his town will be affected by the Boston redistricting.

In 2001, the district now represented by Robert K. Coughlin of Dedham was stretched south from Dedham and Westwood into a section of Walpole.