The Santa Fe Roundhouse. (Greg Sorber / )
Copyright © 2021
SANTA FE – Democrat Dayan Hochman-Vigil and Republican Bill Rehm represent neighboring counties in the State House, stretching from the foothills of Albuquerque to the North Valley.
But they live only 3 miles apart and would be paired in the same district under any house card recommended by the Citizen Redistribution Committee.
It could force the two incumbents to make an unusual decision – move next year, retire, or compete against each other to keep a seat in parliament.
A total of 19 incumbents face similar pairings in at least one plan recommended by the Citizens Committee, an important challenge awaiting New Mexico lawmakers, which will hold a special session next month.
Legislators are free to decline or adjust the recommended cards in order to unravel possible pairings. But they’re an added complication as lawmakers and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham are designing new maps to reflect population changes over the past decade.
The toughest decisions can be made by Democratic Sens. Katy Duhigg and Bill O’Neill of Albuquerque, Republican Sens. William Burt and Ron Griggs of Alamogordo, and Hochman-Vigil and Rehm – all paired in each proposed plan. The committee proposed three cards each for the House of Representatives and the Senate of the state.
Hochman-Vigil, a lawyer, said she wasn’t surprised to end up in a proposed district with another lawmaker. It never made much sense, she said, that District 15 was rooted in the North Valley but passed Interstate 25 to include neighborhoods further east.
“I think the most important thing is to make sure that the interest groups are represented in a district that makes sense for these communities,” said Hochman-Vigil in an interview.
But Rehm, a retired sheriff captain, said the proposals would weaken the legislative influence of his constituents in northeast Albuquerque. As the only Albuquerque Republican still in the State House, he is likely to be targeted by the majority of the Democrats.
“That’s just amazing,” said Rehm about the possible pairing.
O’Neill, who has held a North Valley seat in the Senate since 2013, said he was disappointed to hear that all three plans would bring him to the same district as Duhigg. He supports independent redistributions, he said, but it doesn’t help to combine the same incumbents in every proposal.
“The point is to give us a choice,” he said. “That’s not exactly a choice, is it?”
The proposed maps were adopted by a redistribution committee designed to limit political influence on the new borders.
The seven-member panel – headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edward Chávez – was legally prohibited from considering biased data when evaluating cards.
However, its membership included some politicians. The seven-member panel included two former Democratic MPs, a former Republican Party leader and a former Republican candidate for the legislature. The other two members were independents – a high school teacher and a demographer.
Six of the seven members live in Albuquerque.
The committee was instructed by law to prioritize the cohesion of the interest groups, the formation of compact districts and the observance of traditional redistribution principles. Members were able to check where incumbents lived in limited circumstances, and this was given a lower priority.
Legislators, however, will not face such limits when they meet in the special session expected to begin on December 6th.
For the first time in 30 years, the Democrats will control both the legislative chambers and the governor’s office in the year following a census. They will pass cards for congressional and legislative seats in addition to the Public Education Commission.
The maps that lawmakers will begin with appear to reflect the overall political make-up of the state, according to independent analysis.
In a report to the legislature, David Cottrell, a University of Georgia professor tasked with evaluating the cards, said he had “found little evidence that the cards are unexpectedly unfair.”
Based on voting patterns in the 2012-2020 statewide election, he said the cards are expected to produce:
• 44 to 47 Democrats in the 70-person House of Representatives, compared to 45 now.
• 27 or 28 Democrats in the state Senate up from 27 now.
• Two or three Democrats in the US House of Representatives, compared to two now.
A separate evaluation by the non-partisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave every bill passed by the Citizens’ Committee an “A” for partisan fairness. It did not evaluate the congress concepts.
Republican Sens. Burt and Griggs live about 6 miles apart in Alamogordo and would share a district in all three proposed maps for the Senate.
Burt’s current borough extends north and then east, ending at Roswell. The seat of Griggs goes in the opposite direction, towards Doña Ana County.
A few simple adjustments, Griggs said, would allow both senators to keep their separate wards.
“I think their guidance is fantastic,” said Griggs of the committee’s recommendations, “but I can see we’ll see some adjustments to the cards.”
Burt said the recommended cards were a disappointment. Forcing him and Griggs into the same district, he said, would dampen the legislative voice of Otero County, an area that is home to Holloman Air Force Base, White Sands, mountain communities and the Mescalero Apache Reservation.
“Just because we’re not in the upper Rio Grande Valley, life out here in rural New Mexico is just as important and troubled as it is in Bernalillo or any other district,” Burt said. “It is important that we as senators or rural MPs do not lose this type of representation.”
The challenge will go well beyond Alamogordo and Albuquerque. Legislators joined in at least two plans include Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca of Belen and Senator Joshua Sanchez of Bosque; Sens. David Gallegos of Eunice and Gay Kernan of Hobbs; and House Minority Whip Rod Montoya of Farmington and Rep. James Strickler of Farmington – all of whom are Republicans.
Roswell Rep. Phelps Anderson, a former unaffiliated Republican, would also be involved in several plans. He said Wednesday that growth in southeast New Mexico will clearly require changes in counties in the area, but he has not yet made up his mind whether to start again.
In past rounds of reallocation, lawmakers have generally tried to avoid pairing incumbents as much as possible. In 2011, incumbent GOP representatives Dennis Kintigh and Bob Wooley were merged after two districts in the Roswell area were consolidated. Wooley won the 2012 primary and this year’s general election.
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