Republican Legislators Vow to Stay With Politics Despite Redistricting

Cambridge's two Republican state representatives said yesterday that they would run for elective office in 1964 despite a boundary change submerging their constituencies in strongly Democratic territory.

The change, which became official Tuesday, is part of a general state-wide redistricting and reapportionment of House seats. Because of a steady decline in population, reflected in the number of eligible voters, Cambridge had to reduce its seven representatives to six.

Both Mary B. Newman and Levin H. Campbell '48 said they would not let the district change drive them out of politics, although they left open the possibility that they might not seek to extend their House terms. They united in condemning the redistricting as a political maneuver, but indicated they were not surprised by it.

The five-man committee that redrew the lines in Middlesex County consisted of four Democrats and one Republican, a ratio maintained in each of 12 such groups Gov. Peabody appointed last month.

Democratic Rep. William P. Homans, Jr. '41 denied that political considerations had affected the redistricting, but conseded the committee had probably done its work "is a Democratic way." He said he would have preferred running next fall against Campbell and Mrs. Newman. All three currently represent the second district.

To reduce the number of representatives from that district, the seventh ward--which includes Radcliffe and lies north of the Square--was transferred to the heavily Democratic third district. Since both Mrs. Newman and Campbell live in the seventh ward, they must run against two Democratic incumbents if they wish to win either or both of the district's two seats.

Mrs. Newman claimed that the city's seventh and eighth districts had formed "a sociological whole" and should not have been divided. She said a fairer solution to the reapportionment problem would have been to move ward five into the first district.

Theoretically, the state should reapportion House seats every ten years, but they were last redistributed in 1947. Apparently the framers of the Massachusetts constitution intended to eliminate inequalities by changing the size and extent of wards, rather than moving them to different districts, but that approach was not used this year because of a clause prohibiting such changes except in years ending in a "4."

The present redistricting, according to political analysts, may allow the Democrats to increase their 150-90 majority in the House by capturing at least 10 seats. In Suffolk County (Boston), all six Republican representatives may be eliminated.