Battle begins over home rule petition to skip special election to fill Fernandes Anderson’s Dist. 7 seat

Yawu Miller

Yawu Miller is the former senior editor of the Bay State Banner. He has written for the Banner since 1988.... VIEW BIO

In the wake of District 7 Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson’s April 9 announcement that she will step down, a battle has begun over councilors’ bid to skip a special election to fill her seat.

The battle has pitted a trio of conservative-leaning councilors against Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and Councilor Liz Breadon, who co-sponsored a home rule petition to skip the special election.

“Our priority must be what’s in the best interests of District 7 residents,” said Councilor Ed Flynn, who represents District 2, which includes South Boston, Chinatown and parts of the South End, in a statement. “We can’t disenfranchise communities of color by delaying an election to determine their next city councilor.”

Louijeune, however, says a special election would do little to provide representation, given what would likely be a nearly 120-day timeline that would press up against the regularly scheduled election.

While Fernandes Anderson has indicated she will resign as part of a plea deal during her next court date, which has not yet been set, even if she were to resign this week, the timeline would likely put a special election at the end of July, just weeks before a regular preliminary election would be held, Louijeune notes.

Fernandes Anderson would have to vacate the seat 180 days before the regularly scheduled Tues., Nov. 4 general election, to trigger a special election. If Fernandes Anderson does vacate before May 8, it would trigger a special election. But first, the Council would have to hold an emergency meeting to vote on a special election. Were that to happen this week — and if more than two of the eight people currently vying for the seat file signatures to run — under the city’s charter, a special preliminary election could be held on a Tuesday 62 to 76 days after the Council vote.

Were the vote to happen this week, and the election to take place on the shortest possible timeline, the preliminary would be held Tues., July 1.

The special election preliminary would winnow the field down to two finalists. A general election would then be held within 28 days of the preliminary, which would be July 29. The election results would be certified 10 days later, on Aug. 7, after which a new councilor could be seated.

While the process would ensure that District 7 would have representation, a new councilor would have to run for reelection in the Sept. 9 preliminary and Nov. 9 general elections. During that time in August and September, much of the council’s business grinds to a halt as council members are running reelection campaigns, calling into question the value of having representation for the district.

Louijeune said she spoke to residents of District 7 and found strong opposition to the idea of a special election.

“What we’ve heard is it’s not in the best interests of the district to have an election on such a short timeline,” she said.

“It would be a waste of resources,” said Armani White, executive director of the group Reclaim Roxbury. “Community members should have more time to understand where the candidates stand on the issues.”

Mass VOTE Executive Director Cheryl Crawford said that holding multiple elections within a year tends to drive down voter turnout.

“It’s just a lot for a district to vote four times in two months,” she said.

Flynn, at-large Councilor Erin Murphy, and Councilor John Fitzgerald, who represents the Dorchester-based District 3, all oppose Louijeune and Breadon’s home rule petition. 

Gregory Maynard, executive director of the Boston Policy Initiative think tank, noted that the city in 2023 held a special election in District 9, which includes Back Bay, Beacon Hill and parts of the South End and Fenway.

Because there were just two candidates, there was no preliminary in that race, in which former city worker Sharon Durkan, with political backing from her former boss, Mayor Michelle Wu, won 69% of the vote against Montez Haywood, the chief of asset forfeiture in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

In this year’s District 7 race, however, the eight candidates so far in the race would trigger a preliminary election, which would add an additional 28 days to the timeline.

And, again, there’s no indication yet as to when Fernandes Anderson will plead in her case and resign.

“With each day that passes, and the city clerk does not yet have the notice of vacancy in hand, the argument against a special election grows stronger,” Louijeune said.