Redistricting chief says race wasn't an issue

The lawmaker who oversaw the Legislature's redistricting effort testified yesterday that he did not know that his plan increased the number of Boston House districts where whites outnumber blacks and Hispanics, even though new US Census figures showed that the city's minority population rose dramatically during the 1990s.

Representative Thomas M. Petrolati, taking the stand on the first day of a federal trial challenging the House's 2001 redistricting plan, also testified that he was unaware of a history of racial tension in Charlestown, a key battleground in Boston's desegregation and school busing conflict in the 1970s.

"I'm very parochial in my approach to government," testified Petrolati, a Democrat from the Western Massachusetts town of Ludlow who has commuted three or four days a week to Boston during his 17 years in the Legislature.

Petrolati, appointed to his redistricting chairmanship by House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, also told the three judges hearing the case that he met with no members of the public outside of five hearings, and that he did not recall considering redistricting "from the perspective of race."

"My responsibility was in looking at the whole redistricting process," said Petrolati. "You look at it in its totality."

The case, brought under the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, accuses House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, Petrolati, and fellow House lawmakers of diluting the voting power of the area's burgeoning black and Hispanic population to protect white, incumbent lawmakers -- including Finneran and Chelsea Democrat Eugene L. O'Flaherty.

The number of white-dominated House districts in and around Boston increased from 11 to 12 after the 2001 redistricting, even though Boston had for the first time become a "minority-majority" city, where people of color outnumber whites.

The law forbids diluting minority voter power by carving up the map to "pack" blacks and Latinos in concentrated districts, or by separating them unreasonably from each other.

"The only way to understand the defendants' redistricting plan," said Rudolph F. Pierce, a lawyer representing Hispanic voters in Chelsea, is as an attempt "to keep the old boys -- if you will, the old white boys -- in power."

Steven P. Perlmutter, who represents Finneran and Petrolati, said that Petrolati and his fellow lawmakers did nothing illegal when they considered protecting incumbents in drawing the new map, saying that the effort also protected black and Hispanic lawmakers, too.

"Of course redistricting is political," Perlmutter said. But "obviously, the fact that redistricting is political does not mean it is bad, does not mean it's illegal."

Perlmutter also vigorously denied that there was any intention on the part of Petrolati or other House members to disenfranchise minority voters, saying that the final map protected black and Hispanic enclaves to preserve their voting power.

After the new redistricting map was unveiled in 2001, Finneran, who will probably testify Thursday, saw his the profile of his 12th Suffolk District change dramatically, shedding minority-dominated neighborhoods in the city of Boston while picking up mostly white neighborhoods in the nearby suburb of Milton.

The voters' rights groups contend that O'Flaherty's district, which covers Charlestown and parts of Chelsea, should have changed to take in East Boston, given its proximity and similarly Hispanic demographics.

Petrolati, interviewed before testifying, said he was less than thrilled at taking the stand, but would "answer the questions to the best of my ability."