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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Boston City Council has approved new voting maps with a veto-proof majority, after a highly contentious redistricting process reached its climax in a six-hour long meeting yesterday.
The council has been tasked with drawing new political maps based off the 2020 census and instructed under a federal mandate to draw districts that empower people of color. Councilors Frank Baker, and Michael Flaherty, Ed Flynn, and Erin Murphy, who are all white, all opposed the map. Simmering tensions over race, religion, and political power hit a boiling point over Dorchester.
In the new map, historically white voting districts are split up in District 3 in South Dorchester and a section of South Boston. District 3 Councilor Frank Baker staunchly opposed the changes in Wednesday's public meeting, saying clergy in the neighborhood view this as an "all out assault on Boston Catholic life," and implying Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon is behind that assault.
"It's not lost on them that the person that's leading the charge is a Protestant from Fermanagh," said Councilor Baker, met by an uproar in the Council Chambers. Councilor Breadon, who represents Allston/Brighton in District 9, grew up during The Troubles in Northern Ireland and immigrated to Boston in 1995 to become the council's first openly LGBTQ woman.
With tempers flaring and some old wounds reopened, City Council President Ed Flynn declared a recess. Later in the meeting, Breadon said she was hurt by Baker's accusations.
"I came to Boston, I got involved in community. This is my home," she said. "And it is an insult—it is an insult to me—to have a colleague in this City Council insinuate that I am discriminating against Catholics."
Breadon said she's standing up for the rights of the city's minority communities "to have equal access to voting and to have an equal opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice" and if that means upsetting Catholics, she's "very, very sorry.”
Councilor Baker later apologized as well.
Wednesday's meeting culminated months of division. Accusations of Open Meeting Law violations caused delays in the process and calls for an outright halt. A judge had sought a restraining to prevent the vote from happening. But at the end of the hours-long meeting, nine of thirteen councilors voted to approve the so-called "Unity Map," with enough votes to override any potential veto from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
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