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.
