Redistricting proposal could create new districts and empower non-white residents
2020 Census data may lead to redistricting.
Massachusetts would add two new state Senate districts where non-white residents represent a majority of the population under a draft redistricting map that further shifts the state's political center of gravity eastward.
The proposed map that Senate leaders unveiled Tuesday would avoid pitting any sitting senators against one another and create two incumbent-free districts, including one aimed at empowering Hispanic or Latino voters in the greater Lawrence area who historically have had their voices distilled by white voters in neighboring communities.
Several of the suggested changes appear poised to draw blowback, and potentially even a legal challenge, from elected officials who wanted local wards or entire communities to remain in a single Senate district rather than spliced into multiple.
Only six of the Senate's 40 districts would remain unchanged from the last decennial redistricting process.
Sen. William Brownsberger, who co-chaired the special committee that crafted new lines based on the 2020 U.S. Census, said the median Senate district will shift about 20 percent from its existing shape.
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