Unbelievable. Here's the full text of the SJC Decision. Of course what is even more remarkable is the standard of Justice applied to the privileged. Eighteen months of unsupervised probation for lying when accused of minority voting dilution, nice. Meanwhile just let some drug runner throw a $100 sack of crack cocaine in the sewer, catch an obstruction case and watch him do Hard Time, happens all the time yes it does.No, it's not a bad as the Sal Dimasi situation, (see Motion to Dismiss) but it isn't exactly pretty, either.
But let's not let this give fodder to the Republicans who are attempting to broadly dismiss All Things and People Democratic. Here is what I posted at today's Boston Herald story:
Don't assume that minorities play identity politics, and don't assume that the Republicans are going to act with any greater degree of fairness.
I take the individual politician as the individual politician, sound fair?
I think it is.
From the Decision:
ReplyDelete"In 2001, the Massachusetts Legislature undertook a process to redraw the boundaries of the electoral districts for the House and the Massachusetts Senate; these efforts culminated in the passage of St.2001, c. 125 (2001 Redistricting Act). [FN3] In June of 2002, an organization named the Black Political Task Force and other organizations and individuals representing or comprising African-American and Latino voters in Boston filed a civil action in the Federal District Court (voting rights lawsuit). The voting rights lawsuit named the respondent as a defendant in his official capacity as Speaker, and alleged that the 2001 Redistricting Act, as it related to House seats in Suffolk County, contravened the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and § 2 of the Federal Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b). Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that although in 2000 Boston's minority population constituted over fifty per cent of the city's total population, the 2001 Redistricting Act "eliminated two majority-minority districts, reduced the minority population in one district, and 'super-packed' another district so that it contains a voting age population that is [ninety-eight per cent] minority." It was further alleged that the 2001 Redistricting Act gerrymandered and diluted minority voting strength and created a number of majority-white districts greater than justified by the percentage of white voters in the city's voting age population."