Barrios Faulted for Loss of District

The redistricting process that eliminated Cambridge’s 28th district seat from the statehouse delegation now has state representatives scrambling to assign blame for the loss of the traditionally minority post.

Representative Jarrett T. Barrios ’90 holds the soon-to-be-lost seat, which has fielded a minority winner for the past 25 years. City councillors are now preparing to file a lawsuit in hopes of regaining the district. And many are turning to Barrios to explain why the 28th was dismantled.

Barrios is making a well-publicized run for the State Senate, giving up the 28th seat to do so. This meant he was not at risk of losing his job if his district was cut from the roster—leaving some speculating that responsibility for the loss of the 28th falls on Barrios’ shoulders.

At an emergency council meeting Thursday, Sandra Graham, who held the 28th district seat from 1976-1988, spoke vehemently against what she perceives as Barrios’ neglect.

“That was not his seat to give away,” she said.

“Jarrett Barrios had a choice to make— was he going to run for reelection or not. He made the decision to run for higher office,” said Representative Paul C. Demakis of Boston, who tussled with Barrios over his own district.

“That made his district vulnerable, and then he did very little to try and preserve his seat.”

Barrios’ district was considered a possible sacrifice during the redistricting, after an initial plan joined two Newton districts so that incumbents would face each other in the upcoming race. Rather than run against each other, the two women joined forces to save their districts with a plan to redraw Cambridge lines.

Newton Representative Ruth C. Balser said she already knew Barrios wouldn’t be seeking reelection—and therefore she might be able to direct her campaign toward his district.

Barrios said he never would have agreed to sacrifice his district to such a cause.

“No legislator would agree to the elimination of her or his district,” he said, adding that in a brief conversation with Balser, long before any redistricting maps were released, he discussed having his district changed “by a precinct or two.”

But according to Balser, Barrios gave her permission during the conversation to use his district as a possible solution to solve redistricting problems.

“He told me that indeed he was not seeking reelection to the House,” Balser said. “It was my understanding from our conversation that I could go back to to the redistricting committee and refer to his district.”

At the time, Balser said she had conversations with other representatives who asked her not to tamper with their districts because they told her they weren’t positive that they would be leaving the office.

She said that a request from Barrios to preserve the district—even though he personally was leaving—would have “had weight” with her.

As Barrios tells the story, the loss of his district was a sudden and unexpected blow he only learned about when the newest district maps came out a week ago. At that point, he mounted a last-minute campaign to save the Cambridge minority-influence district by uniting much of the old 28th in Demakis’s district.

Demakis hotly contested Barrios when the resolution encroached on his own political territory. The motion was quickly defeated on a voice vote.

But according to other representatives, the seat was obviously vulnerable from the start since Barrios was leaving.

“What they have done in the past is that they carve up the district of an exiting incumbent,” said Watertown Representative Rachel Kaprielian.

Demakis said discussion of dividing the 28th district has been on the table since the very beginning of the redistricting process—”the past three months.”

Still, Cambridge Representative Alice K. Wolf—who will be the lone full-time representative of the city under the new district plan—said she was shocked when the 28th disappeared from the map.

“We just assumed we were going to keep [Cambridge’s] 2.5 districts,” Wolf said.

The one thing the representatives all agree upon is the 28th district’s importance to Cambridge, and the magnitude of the loss of the minority seat.

“My city, which I have represented for 28 years, has been cut into six pieces,” Wolf said.

“I don’t think [Barrios] understood what the ramifications in Cambridge would be,” Demakis said.

—Staff writer Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at dorgan@fas.harvard.edu.