By Evereth Woodruff 
Forget Texas.
And forget those Texas Democrats who, like illegal immigrants, fled to sanctuary cities like Chicago and New York to avoid a vote on gerrymandering the state’s congressional districts.
Some even trickled into sanctuary Boston to attend last week’s National Conference of State Legislatures, where, ironically, seeking common ground was a major theme.
Gov. Maura Healey warmly welcomed them as though they were illegal immigrants.
But if politicians really want to know about gerrymandering congressional districts to gain power, they all should study Massachusetts.
We invented it.
Or, I should say, Gov. Elbridge Gerry did. He was governor of Massachusetts when he signed a bill in 1812 that created a partisan state Senate district that looked like a mythological salamander (lizard) to benefit his party.
An enterprising reporter from the Boston Gazette took Gerry’s name and fused it with “mander” from salamander and, hence, the word gerrymander, with all its negative implications, was born.
It has been with us ever since. It also has given Gov. Gerry a bad rap. While he is credited, or discredited, for the practice of gerrymandering, all his other accomplishments have been forgotten.
He was a Founding Father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a diplomat, a governor and vice president under President James Madison.
But he is remembered for gerrymandering. That’s history for you.
Redistricting of the states’ 435 U.S. House seats follows the once-in-a-decade population count by the U.S. Census Bureau. States with growing populations (illegal immigrants) gain seats at the expense of states with declining populations.
There is no stipulation that prevents states from redrawing districts in the middle of the decade, like Texas is doing now.
At President Donald Trump behest, the Republican controlled state Legislature in Texas is withdrawing its district lines to better enhance the election of five more Republicans since Trump carried the state in 2024 by 56 per cent over 42 per cent over Democrat Kamala Harris.
Trump got 36 per cent of the vote in Massachusetts but that is not going to make any difference to the state’s Democrat controlled political makeup.
Massachusetts is such a gerrymandered Democratic one-party state that it just as well put up signs at the state border warning Republicans to stay away or reading NRA —No Republicans Allowed.
It is a state that is more welcoming of illegal immigrants than it is of Republicans.
And if there is any doubt of that, just check the more than $1 billion a year progressive Democrat Gov. Maura Healey is shelling out to pay for the care and well-being of illegal immigrants from around the world who have flocked to Massachusetts to partake of its overly generous welfare benefits.
Democrats have gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts to the point that all nine Massachusetts members of the U.S. House are Democrats.
Excluding the fluke election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate in 2010 — who was quickly ousted by radical leftist Democrat Elizabeth Warren–there has not been a Republican elected to the U.S. House from Massachusetts in almost thirty years.
The last Republicans to hold a congressional seat in Massachusetts were Peter Blute of Worcester and Peter Torkildsen of Danvers. Both were elected in 1992, defeating a pair of troubled Democrats—Joe Early and Nick Mavroules.
And then both were ousted in 1996 by Democrats James McGovern, who still hold the seat, and John Tierney, who was later defeated by fellow Democrat Seth Mouton.
There has not been a Republican elected since. And don’t look for another to be elected anytime soon—if ever.
So, let’s hear it for Gov. Eldridge Gerry, and Maura Healey, too.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com