Page 28 - Michael Flaherty News Today

The Boston City Council is making headway on redistricting, but persistent disagreement continues to cast doubt on the body’s ability to reach consensus on a new map, and thus avoid an election delay, by the May 30 deadline.

Lawyers for several voting rights advocacy groups, which played a role last fall in redrawing the political boundaries of the nine City Council district seats, are now seeking to intervene in the federal court case at the center of the city’s chaotic political scene. NAACP Boston, MassVOTE, the Chinese Progressive Association and other groups are seeking to intervene in the

The effort came more than a week after a federal judge barred Boston from using the map it approved last fall for new City Council districts, saying a legal challenge to redistricting could be successful in proving race played too heavy a hand in the process.

The city council is working down to the wire to create a new redistricting map after a federal judge ordered them back to the drawing board.

The City Council sputtered through another discussion over redistricting Monday.

Despite having just two weeks to pass a new redistricting map, the Boston City Council accomplished next to nothing at its latest meeting.  

More than one week after a federal judge rejected a redistricting plan, the 12 sitting councilors are scheduled to meet Wednesday with no clear sign of a consensus emerging.

Wu’s proposed map encountered criticism from advocacy organizations.

“The result is a City Council district map that unifies communities of interest within districts and attempts as best as possible to reflect how residents experience the city in their daily lives,” the mayor wrote in a letter to councilors.

Mayor Michelle Wu on Friday evening released her effort to redraw the lines of the City Council’s nine district seats, coming days after a federal judge nixed a previously enacted map and upended Boston’s political sector. The map unites Dorchester’s Ward 16 entirely within District 3, currently represented by Frank Baker, who is not running for reelection. Wu urged