The League does not have a position on the district maps. We were very critical of the way the Senate constructed the maps behind closed doors. This is why we need an Independent Redistricting Commission and why the Legislature should pass HJR9.

Dick Mason

SANTA FE — With control of the U.S. House at stake in November, the New Mexico Republican Party filed a lawsuit in state court Friday over a new congressional map signed into law last month by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The lawsuit, which was also filed by seven other plaintiffs, argues the Democratic-backed map redrawing the boundaries of New Mexico’s three congressional districts for the next decade intentionally carves up Republican voting strongholds around the state.

Specifically, the suit claims the new boundaries violate redistricting principles established by the Legislature and previous court rulings in order to “accomplish a political gerrymander that unconstitutionally dilutes the votes of residents of southeastern New Mexico in order to achieve partisan advantage.”

It was filed in the state’s Roswell-based 5th District Court and asks a judge to strike down the newly-drawn boundaries and replace it with one proposed by the Citizen Redistricting Committee, a group created last year to recommend maps to lawmakers.

The new congressional map, which is set to officially take effect in March, was passed by lawmakers on largely party-line votes during a special session held last month at the Roundhouse, with majority Democrats voting in favor.

It splits Albuquerque into two districts and moves some of southeast New Mexico, traditionally a conservative stronghold, into congressional districts now represented by U.S. Reps. Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernandez, both Democrats.

As a result, the 2nd Congressional District seat held by U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, the lone Republican member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation, would become more Democratic.

Herrell, who is seeking re-election this year, described the new map as an example of gerrymandering and said it shows Democrats’ desperation to “try to save Nancy Pelosi’s majority.”

However, Democratic backers of the redrawn map have described it as a new approach to setting congressional district boundary lines that ensures each of the state’s three districts include both rural and urban areas.

And Lujan Grisham said after signing the new map into law that it represents “a reasonable baseline for competitive federal elections, in which no one party or candidate may claim any undue advantage.”

Last year’s special session marked the first time in 30 years that Democrats controlled both chambers of the Legislature and the Governor’s Office during a redistricting year.

Official 2020 census data pinpointed New Mexico’s population at slightly more than 2.1 million people — a 2.8% increase from 2010. That means the target population for each of the state’s three congressional districts is 705,841 residents.