'Course of conduct sacrificed racial fairness to the voters

Following are excerpts of a federal appeals court decision ordering the Legislature to redraw 17 Greater Boston districts.

The Speaker of the House, Thomas M. Finneran, named Representative Thomas M. Petrolati to chair the Committee. . . . The Committee (and the House as a whole) apparently was content to leave the heavy lifting to Finneran, Petrolati, their aides, and the Committee staff. Finneran and Petrolati kept the process on a short leash.

Footnote: Although Speaker Finneran denied any involvement in the redistricting process, the circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the opposite conclusion. For one thing, he hand-picked the members of the Committee and placed Petrolati at the helm. For another thing, he ensured that the Committee hired his boyhood friend and long-time political collaborator, Lawrence DiCara, as its principal functionary. Last -- but far from least -- Finneran's in-house counsel, John Stefanini, had the Maptitude software installed on his computer in the Speaker's office suite and was one of only four legislative staffers who received training in how to use the software. . . .

At trial, the plaintiffs established that the African-American population in Suffolk County -- which encompasses all of the city of Boston and a few environs -- is sufficiently large and compact to allow for the creation of more majority black districts than currently exist. . . .

After having heard the testimony and reviewed the evidence, we find that incumbency protection played a significant role in the Committee's redistricting decisions. Incumbency protection is as old as electoral politics and, in its traditional form, is often thought to be a legitimate consideration in redistricting. . . .

The issue becomes more complex, however, when race is used as a tool to achieve incumbency protection. . . .

Here, the Committee made African-American incumbents less vulnerable by adding black voters to their districts and made white incumbents less vulnerable by keeping their districts as "white" as possible. Its actions evinced a willingness to move district lines simply to safeguard incumbents' seats, without regard to other objectives. This course of conduct sacrificed racial fairness to the voters on the altar of incumbency protection. . . . That sacrifice lends considerable luster to the plaintiffs' case. . . .

The Enacted Plan stripped three majority black precincts from the 11th and three more from the 12th. Rather than move these six precincts into districts where their presence might increase African-American opportunities, the House chose instead to place them in the 6th Suffolk -- a district that already was two-thirds black under the 1993 Plan. . . . As a result of this superpacking of the 6th Suffolk, the black Voting Age Population in the 12th Suffolk (Speaker Finneran's district) was significantly reduced and the 11th Suffolk was converted from a majority minority district to a majority white district. . . .

We also deem it significant that, despite a growing African-American population, the Enacted Plan represents a step back from the previous redistricting scheme (enacted in 1993). . . . We find that, despite these shifts in population, the Enacted Plan increased the number of majority white districts to twelve and diminished the number of majority black districts to one. . . . However they are arrayed, these figures are disturbing, especially given the professed desire of the Committee to preserve or enhance minority voting opportunities. In the face of a burgeoning minority population, this sort of retrogression counts in the plaintiffs' favor. . . .

In the end, we conclude that the calculated manipulation of the 6th, 11th, and 12th Suffolk districts, the reengineering associated with the Fitzgerald Amendment, and the regressive nature of the Enacted Plan collectively exhibit a willingness on the part of the House to use race as a proxy in achieving incumbency protection. This evidence weighs heavily in the plaintiffs' favor in a consideration of the totality of the circumstances. . . .

We are mindful that 2004 is an election year and that time is of the essence. . . . Moreover, we are cognizant that the movement of a single precinct may create a ripple effect felt several districts away. . . . We believe that, given the extensive work already done and the availability of the Maptitude software, six weeks should be a sufficient period of time for the defendants to prepare a proposed redistricting plan, forward it to the plaintiffs for comment, and then submit it to us for approval. If the defendants fail to act within these temporal parameters, this court then must fashion an appropriate remedy.