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.”