For the first time in decades, the Massachusetts Legislature managed to create new state legislative and US congressional districts that, by and large, put the voters’ interests above the politicians’. You ask: Shouldn’t it always be that way? Of course it should. It just never is. And the new maps signify something deeper, and potentially more lasting, than just better-looking districts. They reflect a broader cultural evolution at the State House, especially among the Democratic establishment, away from a machine-style approach to politics and toward a more modern, more progressive leadership. The progress has been uneven, to be sure, but it’s real. And taken together, a series of reforms – from a tightening of pension and ethics rules to putting state expenditures online in a new “open checkbook” – is nothing to sniff at.