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Fair Districts For New Mexico Advocates For Redistricting Advisory Commission

Fair Districts For New Mexico

Every ten years, New Mexico redraws voting districts to better reflect the current population following the census.

Fair Districts For New Mexico is an organization advocating for the formation of a Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission that will allow for a more independent process.

Kathy Brook, the Co-President of the League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico, outlined the role a commission would play in the state’s redistricting efforts.  

“Members of the legislature would appoint several people, and then the New Mexico Ethics Commission would appoint three people to oversee the process. And this would involve working with the technical people to develop a set of maps,” Brook said. “I think the requirement would be three to five maps, for each area that requires redistricting. So three to five maps that would cover congressional districts, three to five for the legislature, three to five for the Public Education Commission. And the idea is that the legislature would then select from those sets of maps rather than drawing their own maps.”

Redistricting commissions already exist in over a dozen states, including neighboring Arizona and Colorado. Brook says a commission will increase transparency and credibility.

“We have long supported having an independent commission that is independent of the legislature that would draw the redistricting lines,” Brook said. “We think that serves voters better. It allows the public to choose their legislators rather than having the legislators decide who their constituents are going to be. We think that an open process is one that is less likely to be subject to litigation, and New Mexico has had a good bit of litigation on this topic, past redistricting efforts.”

It’s a sentiment State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino agrees with, telling Fair Districts For New Mexico that the current redistricting process leaves the state vulnerable to increased legal action. Already, the state has spent 7 million dollars in taxpayer funds to cover fees associated with past redistricting lawsuits.

“We've held it so close to the vest, and we go behind closed doors to come up with these maps that satisfy us and then we spring them on the public. It's like a red flag in front of a bull —of course you're going to have legal challenges,” Ortiz y Pino said. “And even if what the court ultimately approves is not significantly better than what we had come up with, it's just that the way we went about doing it was like asking for trouble.”

State Senator Mark Moores says a Redistricting Advisory Commission will help ensure minority populations are fairly represented.

“Critical for redistricting is protecting minority voting rights,” Moores said. “In New Mexico that often is Native Americans because of past discriminations in drawing districts, previous redistricting processes.”

Surveys conducted by Fair Districts For New Mexico indicate that newly elected officials are more willing to give their support to the formation of a commission, something incumbents have been less likely to do. Moores spoke about previous attempts to get legislation passed, citing incumbents as one reason the efforts have been unsuccessful. 

“We had a bill that had Republican and Democrat sponsors,” Moores said. “Even though we filed it early, it never once, out of the three referrals, had a hearing because quite frankly leadership didn’t want it. And that's what the power of the legislative process is —when you're in leadership, when you control the next redistricting you can be sure that your party and those who support you in your caucus continue to be in power for the next ten years. You have no desire to change the system.”

Richard Mason, the leader of Fair Districts For New Mexico, says he knows there will be challenges to the legislation, but is hopeful that increased public interest and support from those like former New Mexico Appeals Court Justice Roderick Kennedy and former New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Edward Chavez will help to make the case for a commission. 

“This is going to be a lift, I don't want to sugarcoat that,” Mason said. “With the support of Judge Kennedy and Justice Chavez, you know, I think it's going to give us a lot more support.”

League of Women Voters of Southern New Mexico Co-President Kathy Brook, says it’s important for the public to understand the benefits of redistricting, emphasizing that it puts the power back in the hands of the general public.

“Even though it seems a bit obscure, it only comes up every 10 years…the fundamental issue is the representation of the people of New Mexico and the legislature in particular, to some degree, also in the Congress,” Brook says. “What these districts look like, shape what public policy is going to be in the future.”

Madison Staten was a Multimedia Reporter for KRWG Public Media from 2020-2022.