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May 13, 2004

Redistricting creates chaos for candidates

Jeremy Schwab

Over 15 volunteers from the Green-Rainbow Party canvassed Jamaica Plain and Roxbury over Mother’s Day weekend, scrambling to meet Tuesday’s deadline to hand in signatures to put their candidate for state representative on the ballot in the 11th Suffolk District.

The second candidate of color to announce his intention to run against incumbent Liz Malia in the re-drawn “minority-opportunity” district, David Barkley also became the second candidate of color to experience difficulty getting on the ballot in the 11th.

“First, I tried to find out what district I was in,” said the labor union activist and resident of Bicknell Street in Dorchester. “Then I called the state Election Department May 5 and they told me I wasn’t in [the 11th].”

But Barkley was unconvinced. He visited the state Election Department headquarters at Ashburton Place again on Friday, May 7, and was again told by an employee that he was not in the new 11th district. Finally, the employee’s supervisor came out and located Bicknell St. on the map and — behold — it was in the 11th.

“If I hadn’t questioned their information, I wouldn’t have been able to run,” said Barkley.

“I can’t comment on Mr. Barkley’s experiences,” said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin, who oversees the state Election Department.

Galvin suggested an extension from April 27 to May 11 for filing papers in the re-drawn districts, a suggestion which the Legislature promptly put into law.

“We worked really hard with the judges and the Legislature to try to get them to extend their deadline, but they didn’t want to move,” said Atiya Dangleben, program coordinator at Boston VOTE. “It is really an attempt to squeeze out any type of competition. It is really a part of the incumbency protection plan.”

McNiff defended his boss’s decision to set Tuesday as the deadline.

“The secretary felt that the two-week extension was sufficient,” he said.

McNiff said the secretary of state wanted to comply with a May 25 deadline for cities and towns to certify nomination papers. However, when pressed, McNiff admitted his boss could have suggested extending that deadline just as he suggested extending the filing deadline.

Federal judges ruled that the House of Representatives’ initial districting map illegally diluted the voting strength of African Americans. The Legislature’s re-drawn map, which turned the 11th Suffolk from majority-white to 70 percent black and Latino, was approved by the judges April 16.

Malia was unsympathetic to Barkley’s plight.

“For people involved on a regular basis and in touch, you know if an opportunity arises you jump in,” she said.

Admittedly, Barkley waited over two weeks to ask the state what district he was in.

“There’s been plenty of time, but there hasn’t been a group that looked at working with myself or the community groups that are already there,” said Malia. “And they haven’t groomed a candidate.”

Jamaica Plain resident Francisco Trilla, like Barkley, ran into difficulty after he announced his intention to run for the 11th Suffolk seat.

He announced that he would run for the seat before the Legislature presented its re-drawn map to the judges. But the new map put Trilla’s precinct outside the 11th.

So two weeks ago, the doctor and Harvard Medical School instructor moved to a neighborhood in the current district. Trilla has asked a federal judge to review his plea that he be allowed to run.

If they are able to run, both Barkley and Trilla enjoy the advantage that people of color tend to vote for candidates of color when given the choice.

“Neither of them has very high name recognition,” said Patrick Keaney, who managed City Councilor Felix Arroyo’s successful re-election bid last year and who hopes to work for either Trilla or Barkley. “There is going to be a huge turnout for the presidential election, so they need to get into the new precincts in Grove Hall, Egleston Square and Franklin Field and tell people they have a choice to elect a black or Latino.”

 

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