Just a quick question for Brian & those involved. Was there any consideration of making 8 regions made up of 5 senate districts? Did the ‘geometry’ work at all for that? I ask because the new maps would separate Pioneer valley chapter into two regions, the norther part of PVGRP in the “west central” region and the southern portion in the “west” region. According to the by-laws, we could have a joint annual convention, but it would be such a big region if the west, west-central and, say, central regions convened together, it would not feel very local, and I’m sure we would miss folks from, say, the far western districts just due to travel time.
Anyhow – Using 5 districts per regions helps that geographic problem for us int eh west and arguably int eh southeast, but I have no idea if that would mess up the greater boston and metros regions, so I thought I’d ask if you already considered it, and if so, why is 4 districts per region better than 5?

John, I tried for two days to group the 40 state senate districts into ten regions that don’t split cities, and that meet the other requirements, and have thus come to deeply respect the great work Merelice has done in devising these regions. The multiple objectives in grouping these regions inevitably conflict – a perfect job is not an option, I’m sorry to say.
While we want to group all of a municipality’s districts in the same region, a problem is that we also want to leave no single district at one end of the state grouped in a gerrymandered-like fashion into one region with a few spare districts in another part of the state.
Also, Worcester and greater Boston are so big that they each inevitably divide into multiple four-district regions, when we start from the corners of the state, so that no single senatorial district is orphaned alone in a corner. That is why both Worcester and greater Boston are divided in Merelice’s arrangement.
While one could try to better apportion the 40 districts into ten regions, I found that I could not, and so recommend accepting these regions as is.

Any boundaries that we approve should be modified to avoid splitting municipalities between regions. This is a very important consideration with regard to political organizing.

This item will be placed on the agenda separate from other proposals. It is not a new proposal but is, instead, an item that has sprung from the work of an earlier proposal that was passed by State Committee.