redistricting

A handful of incumbent politicians are seeking to testify in the federal court case challenging the legality of Boston’s voter district maps, including U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, who has served in Congress since 2001.

A coalition of South Boston-based organizations and activists have filed a lawsuit against the Boston City Council in an attempt to overturn a redistricting map the body passed by a 9-4 vote on Oct. 26.

Faced with a redistricting map that would transfer three traditionally Irish American Boston precincts into a predominantly Black city council district, Councilor Frank Baker invoked the oppression of Catholics in the North of Ireland and called out the Redistricting Committee chair for being a Protestant.

As the city’s once-in-a decade redistricting process comes to a close, city councilors have had to pick their battles in order to meet the deadline for redrawing voting boundaries.

A longstanding racial divide on the City Council has moved to center stage as the 13 members of the body debate the redrawing of the city’s nine council districts.

A redistricting map supported by voting rights advocates sparked fierce pushback from white City Councilors Monday during a heated hearing in City Hall’s Iannella Chamber.

Boston city councilors now have three proposed maps to consider in an ongoing redistricting process set to end in early November.

District 5 City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo and District 7 Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson released a redistricting map that they say keeps most of the city’s neighborhoods whole and increase opportunities for Black Latino and Asian candidates to win seats on the council.

In the wake of sexual assault allegations against the former chair of the Boston City Council Redistricting Committee coming to light, questions and concerns have arisen over the fate of the city’s redistricting process, which aims to redraw Boston’s political map for the first time in a decade.

Beyond the cranes and new high-rise luxury condo buildings redefining the city’s skyline, the increase and shift in the city’s population could have implications for Boston’s nine City Council districts.

For Boston’s communities of color, the redistricting process for the Massachusetts House and Senate offers a chance to advocate for better representation. Under maps expected to be approved Wednesday, the state Legislature would add 13 new majority-minority districts — districts in which the larger share of population is not white — in the House and three new ones in the Senate, resulting in a total of 33 House districts and six Senate districts that are majority-minority.

The Drawing Democracy Coalition (DDC) released proposals for House and Senate redistricting maps Sept. 28 that would increase the number of districts with majority populations of color.