Rausch Takes all of Franklin in Senate Redistricting, Roy keeps Current Franklin-Medway District

The long-awaited news about state legislative districts leaked out of Beacon Hill throughout the day on Tuesday, with some significant changes for Franklin. In recent years, the town has been split between two senate districts. Thus, roughly speaking, the western part of the town has been represented by the powerful Senate President, Karen Spilka, while the east has looked to newcomer Becca Rausch. Both are Democrats.

Under the revised draft plan, Rausch will represent all of Franklin and her Needham-to-Attleboro district has been trimmed slightly, ending at Plainville. The Senator’s spokesperson, Evan Berry, cautioned that the districts won’t be finalized until after public comments close on Oct. 18.

Elsewhere, the redistricting folks redrew maps for other parts of the state significantly, not looking at Republican versus Democrat voters but focusing on racial characteristics to create more “minority majority” districts, notably in the Lawrence area.

Massachusetts would add two new state Senate districts in total where non-white residents represent a majority of the population. The map that Senate Democrats unveiled would also avoid pitting any sitting senators against one another in a chamber where Republicans hold just three seats currently.

Changes were also unveiled in the House districts.

New incumbent-free House districts centered in Chelsea, Brockton and Lawrence and the shrinking of the Berkshire County delegation mark some of the biggest changes to the district map proposed by lawmakers in charge of the decennial redistricting process.

They have drafted a House map that would increase the number of districts with a majority minority population by 13 beginning with the 2022 elections.

The redistricting effort this year was put off by months after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the traditional spring release of U.S. Census population data until mid-August.

While the population in Massachusetts grew by 7.4 percent to more than 7 million over the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the white population declined by 7 percent, while the Black, Asian and Latinx populations all grew.

The proposed map of new House districts would increase the number of majority minority districts from 20 when the current districts were drawn in 2011 to 33, exceeding the targets set by voting rights groups that have been pressuring lawmakers to draw districts that would maximize opportunities for candidates of color to win seats on Beacon Hill and diversify the ranks of the Democrat-dominated Legislature.

Franklin’s State Representative, Democrat Jeff Roy, appears to have retained his Franklin-Medway district (the 10th Norfolk District) unchanged from the past, according to a map set released on Tuesday.

Reporting by State House News Service and Franklin Observer