Retired
Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward
Chavez and retired Court of
Appeals Chief Judge Roderick
Kennedy “enthusiastically”
accepted the invitation to
co-chair a redistricting task
force “to bring justice, fairness
and transparency” to the
contentious decennial process.
And
yet, the far-flung congressional
map before Gov. Michelle Lujan
Grisham would carve the oil patch
into three districts; split the
population centers of Hobbs,
Roswell and Albuquerque; and
dilute the rural vote and shift
even more political power to
central New Mexico.
In
addition, it wasn’t even among the
maps endorsed by the Citizen
Redistricting Committee, created
to follow through on the task
force’s work.
The
time has come for the governor to
honor the fact that her
constituents should get to pick
their representatives in
government — rather than
representatives in government
picking their constituents. She
should veto the map.
Chavez
and Kennedy said in a Journal
guest column in January that the
25-member Redistricting Task Force
worked for 12 weeks studying state
and federal requirements, best
practices from other states and
concerns from specific communities
before developing 18 consensus
recommendations — all in a report
available at NMFirst.org.
The
22-page report says the guiding
values should entail keeping
like-minded communities together,
prioritizing communities of
interest, protecting marginalized
groups, avoiding court
intervention, and not favoring
anyone, specifically political
parties or incumbents.
State
lawmakers then created a
seven-member Citizen Redistricting
Committee, whose stated aim was to
propose sets of maps honoring the
redistricting principles. It’s
hard to square those principles
with state lawmakers’ approved
congressional map, which would
dramatically and unnecessarily
reshape the state’s political
landscape.
The
Citizen Redistricting Committee
proposed three maps, and the
Journal Editorial Board preferred
the option that unified the
Albuquerque metro area. We could
live with the one that kept the
status quo. The third, so-called
“People’s Map,” was a
gerrymandered abomination. The map
on the governor’s desk takes that
one even further and is even more
painfully partisan. It can be
viewed at https://www.nmlegis.gov/Redistricting2021/Maps_And_Data?ID202=221711.1
If
approved, the northern-based 3rd
Congressional District of
incumbent Teresa Leger Fernandez,
D-Santa Fe, would stretch from
Farmington down to north Hobbs and
also pick up most of Roswell. It
would still lean heavily
Democratic, but would bring in a
large area of constituents at odds
with Leger Fernandez’s platforms.
The
central 1st Congressional District
of incumbent Melanie Stansbury,
D-Albuquerque, which contains most
of metro Albuquerque, would shed
much of the West Side, add Rio
Rancho and run down to northwest
Roswell to include a host of rural
counties with very different
constituent concerns from the
urban core. It would also continue
to lean Democratic.
And the
southern New Mexico-based 2nd
Congressional District of Yvette
Herrell, R-Alamogordo, would
recoup its population losses by
picking up much of Albuquerque’s
West Side, including parts of
Taylor Ranch and Ventana Ranch,
the Barelas neighborhood and the
South Valley. This would turn the
traditionally Republican-leaning
district into another one leaning
Democrat, while carving up
neighborhoods throughout the
Albuquerque area. One example of
the incongruity — the Rio Grande
Zoo would shift to CD2, while
Tingley Beach and the Albuquerque
Country Club would remain in CD1.
So much
for preserving communities of
interest. Strike one.
Court
battles over redistricting cost
the state more than $6 million in
2011 and $3.7 million in 2001 in
legal costs. House Republican
leaders are already talking about
challenging the map in court.
So much
for avoiding court. Strike two.
Insiders
say none of our three
congresswomen likes the proposed
map. Little wonder.
It
shifts much of the metro area’s
population into southern CD2,
which not only increases the
chances of all three congressional
seats being held by Democrats, but
also being held by someone from
Albuquerque or Santa Fe. That’s
unfair to residents outside the
Santa Fe-Albuquerque corridor.
And
it’s unfair to members of our
congressional delegation, who
already cover large swathes of New
Mexico. This map increases the
geographic and political stretch
each must cover.
The
rural-urban divide has been an
issue in New Mexico for decades.
Southern New Mexico produces much
of the state’s revenue via oil and
gas, yet its conservative voting
base feels little love from Santa
Fe. And this map takes a chainsaw
to that base.
So much
for not favoring a specific group
or party. Strike three.
Lujan
Grisham should not allow herself
to be swayed by her party’s antics
— she should take this opportunity
to be a true leader and represent
the whole state when it comes to
redistricting. Vetoing the
congressional map and sending
lawmakers back to the drawing
board with instructions to honor
the task force’s principles will
do just that.
This editorial first
appeared in the Albuquerque
Journal. It was written by
members of the editorial board
and is unsigned as it represents
the opinion of the newspaper
rather than the writers.
