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PrintApril 29, 2011
Scott Brown Urges Racial Gerrymandering
Senator Scott Brown announced that he is urging the Massachusetts Legislature to create a "majority-minority" Congressional district -- a district with a majority of non-white voters -- centered in Suffolk County. Redistricting is required before the 2012 election because Massachusetts lost one of its ten Congressional seats in the 2010 Census.
The Boston Globe notes:
Brown's move also aligns him with groups that have mounted a campaign to create such a majority-minority seat. The Massachusetts Black Empowerment Coalition for Redistricting, for example, as been strongly urging the legislature to create such a district."I want to add my voice to theirs," Brown said in the letter.
Conservatives have been disappointed by many of Scott Brown's votes, and this won't help.
For one thing, Congressman Michael Capuano responded with surprise in an email to his constituents that his 8th CD, which includes Suffolk County (Boston) is 53.1% non-white and thus is already a majority-minority district.
Furthermore, the whole discussion smacks of racial gerrymandering -- a form of affirmative action for voters to make up for the white gerrymandering of the Jim Crow era. So much for all that content of their character stuff.
And as a strategic move, did Brown not notice that 96% of blacks voted for Obama and 65% of Latinos voted for Democrats in Congressional races? Why would go out of his way to urge the Legislature to create a permanent Democrat district? Unless perhaps he assumes that given Massachusetts politics, it won't make any difference, and having the support of the Black Empowerment Coalition might help his 2016 re-election campaign?
