Redistricting fix rebuffed

Plaintiffs in a federal suit that struck down a 2001 legislative redistricting plan yesterday denounced the remedy proposed by legislators, saying the new plan does little to increase the political clout of Boston's growing minority population and continues to protect incumbents at the expense of black and Latino voters.

"They're twisting this court decision to do this racial gerrymandering and incumbent protection," said George Pillsbury, policy director for Boston VOTE, one of the organizations that brought the suit in 2002. "Bizarrely, it maintains these 12 majority-white districts out of Boston's 17 House seats, and to do that, you really have to twist district lines. . . . Dr. Seuss couldn't have dreamed this one up."

Steven Perlmutter, one of the lawyers defending the House redistricting plan, said the solution proposed satisfies the demands of the court, which ordered legislators to create more majority-black districts in Boston. He called the plaintiffs' criticisms "completely unfair."

"It appears to me to be rank politics that's going on," he said.

But the plaintiffs, who saw the plan Tuesday afternoon but withheld specific criticisms until they reviewed the new redistricting proposal, said the plan continues to pack minority voters into a few districts, and to whiten other districts, diminishing minority clout across the city.

"The fact of the matter is, the black and Latino population has grown," said Giovanna Negretti, executive director of Oiste, a Latino political organization. "The whole redistricting process was to reflect that growth by redrawing the districts. We had 12 districts that were [majority] white to begin with. How is it that we still have 12 districts that are white?"

The plaintiffs brought their case in 2002 because they argued the House redistricting plan had concentrated large numbers of minority voters in one district (a process called packing) and moved too many of them out of other legislative districts (called cracking), thereby violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The court agreed, deciding that the House plan enacted in 2001 "sacrificed racial fairness to the voters on the altar of incumbency protection," and ordering legislators to redraw the legislative map to correct the violation.

The judges found that the legislators who redrew the map after the 2000 census packed too many black voters into the Sixth Suffolk District, represented by Shirley Owens-Hicks of Mattapan and took too many away from some other districts.

Perlmutter said the House plan released Tuesday remedies that violation. Though the plaintiffs have long argued that the plan should take into account the voting rights of black and Latino voters, Perlmutter said the court's decision was confined to black voters only.

"We have to correct the violation of the rights of black voters," he said. "The case was not about the rights of everybody who's not white as opposed to people who are white. It's a sad day for our democracy when people start looking at our society as just two groups -- white, and everybody who is not white. That is not what our American democracy is about."

The plaintiffs said yesterday the legislators' solution, by dealing only with black voters, does a disservice to the city's fast-growing Latino population.

Negretti was particularly critical of the plan's effect on the 11th Suffolk District, represented by Elizabeth Malia of Jamaica Plain, and on the 15th Suffolk District, represented by Jeffrey Sanchez, also of Jamaica Plain.

Too many minority voters had been moved out of Malia's district and into Sanchez's, making Malia's district too white, she said.

"We had two districts, minority opportunity districts, in Jamaica Plain and Mission Hill, which happens to be the place where the majority of Latinos live in Boston in addition to East Boston," Negretti said. "And they completely dilute the opportunity of Latinos gaining political power in those seats by pushing the whole community into one district and whitening the other. They're robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's really audacious of them to do this. They're completely cracking the fastest-growing community in Massachusetts."

Plaintiffs contend that the new House plan packs minority voters into three districts, which continues to violate the court's ruling.

Perlmutter said that overall, the new districts are fair, and that only the overall picture is considered by the court. By his calculation, the proposed plan provides four majority black and one majority minority district.

"There's no right under [the] Voting Rights Act to have a particular district have particular racial composition," he said. "As long as, overall, we provide a fair number of opportunity districts for the protected group."

Perlmutter criticized the plaintiffs for airing their grievances publicly before the two sides met to hammer out a compromise.

The plaintiffs criticized Perlmutter and House leaders for failing to consult them throughout the redistricting process.

The two sides may yet hammer out a compromise redistricting plan, though neither side believes that's likely.

Either way, a compromise plan, or two rival plans, will be presented to the court by April 6. The judges will ultimately decide what the city's legislative boundaries should be.