[LWVNM Action] NM Ethics Watch on the lack of diversity on the Citizen Redistricting Committee - and my take

[Richard Mason]

Although the LWVNM has expressed the same concerns about the lack of
ethnic, geographic and gender diversity on the CRC we still  believe it can
be highly effective. The 3 Ethics Commission appointments were excellent
and they will be the swing votes. We need to have the CRC appoint advisory
committees to deal with the lack of diversity.
Dick Mason

*For ethics’ sake, we must redo the state redistricting commission – oped
in ABQ Journal*

BY KATHLEEN A. SABO / EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, N.M. ETHICS WATCH
<https://www.abqjournal.com/author/abqnews>

Friday, June 18th, 2021.  at 12:02am



During our pandemic-borne podcast, EthicsNOW (www.ethicsnow.org), we asked
guests what “ethics” meant to them. Collectively, guests spoke of honesty,
integrity, keeping one’s word, thinking of the other not just ourselves,
doing the right thing, creating equitable opportunities. High school
students who responded to our essay contest prompt in 2019, “What does
being ethical mean to you?” chose to write about many of the same things.

All of the work New Mexico Ethics Watch undertakes has the same goal: to
improve the ethical culture in New Mexico – encouraging public officials,
citizens, our youth to value ethics, to practice and demonstrate
identifiable ethical principles and actions. New Mexico and New Mexicans
will be better for this practice.

A recent Albuquerque Journal editorial, “Redistricting redux: Voters
deserve a do-over,” published Sunday, June 13th, highlighted how far from
the ethical mark committee appointers fell with regard to appointments to
the newly-created Citizens Redistricting Committee. How, in practice, the
appointments, collectively, did not hold to a high bar reflecting
integrity, keeping one’s word, thinking of the other, doing the right thing
and creating equitable opportunities. Although the editorial only mentioned
the word “ethics” in the State Ethics Commission’s title, the failure in
practice can be called an ethical failure.

It is true that the Redistricting Act did not mandate coordination or
networking between the appointing authorities – various lawmakers and the
State Ethics Commission – but, as the Journal editorial points out, the
Redistricting Act calls for appointments “with due regard to the cultural
and geographic diversity of the state.”

As an appointing authority – particularly if you’ve voted on the
legislation, but hopefully even if not – you are aware of what is
essentially a pledge or a promise to appoint a culturally and
geographically diverse group of citizens. But we did not get that with the
appointed committee. Instead, we got a committee made up of six men and one
woman, a committee with no Native American or African American members, a
committee where six of the seven members live in Albuquerque, and the
seventh in nearby Belen.

How is that equitable? How is that ethical? How is that representative of
the state? It’s not. And so, the Journal proposes a do-over. Might a
tangent to ethical principles be the ability to admit when something has
gone wrong and to take the care and consideration to try again for a better
result?



Cynics might say that the Citizens Redistricting Committee, with its lack
of ability to impose map choices upon lawmakers, is just for show, has no
power, was a compromise without teeth that lets lawmakers trumpet – or even
whisper – their support for ethical, nonpartisan redistricting. Even if
this is so, why don’t we let our public officials know that it matters to
us – New Mexicans, citizens, voters – and that we want to hold legislators
to their word and have them act more ethically in appointing a diverse,
representative committee? We can and we should.

As far as who goes and who stays in this do-over? While the appointment of
retired Justice Edward Chávez to chair the committee is unassailable,
lawmakers would do well to appoint people from outside central New Mexico,
a Native American member and an African American member, reflecting our
cultural and geographic diversity.

The particulars are up to the appointing authorities, but creating a more
transparent selection process, like that undertaken by the State Ethics
Commission, and using that process in a coordinated, second attempt at
creating the Citizens Redistricting Committee will assist in building trust
among the public – a public wary of politics and that is most likely tired
of political “business as usual.”
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