Massachusetts lawmakers keep Fall River, New Bedford separated in proposed Congressional maps

State lawmakers released a revised congressional map that keeps with an earlier proposal splitting New Bedford and Fall River into separate districts and rejecting calls from advocates to unite the two South Coast cities.

Disagreement over whether the two cities should remain unified under one district was one of the last hang-ups in what has been a complicated redistricting process.

Some advocates and elected officials — including U.S. Rep. William Keating who represents the 9th district, former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III and several state and local officials — had warned the proposal to unify Fall River for the first time in decades by placing it entirely in the 4th district alongside wealthy suburbs like Brookline, Newton and Wellesley, could dilute its political capital.

But competing arguments from Fall River officials who favor keeping their city whole made it difficult for lawmakers in charge of redrawing the maps to buy in.

U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who represents the 4th district and handily won all 13 Fall River precincts included in his district during his freshman 2020 election, argued alongside city leaders during a more than 5-hour hearing last week that the city should remain intact.

State Rep. Michael Moran, who led the redistricting effort for the House, told State House News Service he was not swayed by arguments that the two cities — which have the nation’s largest populations of Portuguese-American residents — should remain lumped together under the 9th district to protect the interests of the region’s tightly knit Portuguese and Azorean communities.

“Azoreans are not a protected class of people and nowhere on this map will you find us drawing a congressional district for a subset of non-Hispanic whites. When I look at good principles of redistricting, that’s not a principle you’re going to find,” Moran said.

Lawmakers are also looking to bolster the majority-minority power of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s district in Boston in an effort to make it more likely to elect diverse candidates to serve — an effort that dictated the decision to split the two largest South Coast cities by population.

Lawmakers are working to get the maps on Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk before lawmakers break for the holiday recess on Wednesday. Should the two chambers approve the maps and earn the governor’s signature, they will go into effect starting with the 2022 election cycle.

The revised redistricting plan makes changes to boundaries in Hingham, Boston and the Merrimack Valley.

The updated map no longer divides Hingham, keeping the community whole within the Ninth Congressional District, and makes some changes in Boston along precinct lines to make it easier for the congressional and local boundaries to align.

The revised map also unites Tewksbury in the Sixth Congressional District, which is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton.

The committee on Monday also released a plan for the eight Governor’s Council districts that will likely be voted on alongside the congressional map.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.