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Southeast New Mexico residents Wednesday weighed in on how their congressional and legislative districts should be redrawn when the state’s redistricting advisory panel held a public meeting in Roswell.
For nearly four hours, 10 people, including activists, current and former state legislators and municipal officials offered testimony to the New Mexico Citizen Redistricting Committee about their communities and how they can best be represented when the state undergoes its once-a-decade redistricting.
In all, 70 people showed up for Wednesday’s meeting at Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell’s Information Technology Center, Mike Killey, special projects director for the committee, said. He added that 35 of those individuals attended the meeting in person, while another 35 listened in via Zoom.
The meeting is one in a series that the seven-member committee is holding across New Mexico in August before the committee comes up with proposed maps that will then be recommended to the Legislature for consideration as well as the governor.
Brian Sanderoff, president of Polling & Research, Inc., who is doing work for the committee, said that effective redistricting takes into account five principles: equal population size, minority voting rights, that districts are contiguous and compact, and that communities of interest are taken into account.
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Some at the meeting, such as Frank Sanchez, of Roswell, said the committee needs to make sure majority Hispanic districts, such as House District 58 in southern Chaves County, are not “cracked” or broken up into various districts in a way that dilutes the voting strength of that population.
Others who spoke at the meeting said while race is important, there are other criteria too — such as economics — that need to be taken into account.
“Economics is just as important as anything else,” said former state Sen. Timothy Jennings, who had represented Senate District 32, which includes portions of Chaves, Eddy and Otero counties.
He added the needs of the Mescalero Apache Tribe in his former district are different than the other tribes and pueblos in the state. He notes they have similar economic interests as the rest of southeast New Mexico, such as horse racing and casinos and issues related to Highway 70.
Others said they are worried that the concentration of the state’s population in the state’s metropolitan areas could negatively impact how rural parts of the state are represented.
“What’s worrying me right now is that rural voice getting lost,” District 58 state Rep. Candy Ezzell, R-Roswell, said.
“I think representation definitely needs to take place, keeping communities together so those communities do know where they need to turn whenever there is a problem,” she added.
Though information released by the state shows that Chaves County and some other counties in southeast New Mexico decreased in population, neighboring Eddy and Lea counties saw rises in their populations.
Missi Currier, a spokesperson who came to the meeting and delivered a statement on behalf of Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway, said the mayor hopes that his city can be represented by one state senator instead of three.
Currently Carlsbad includes Senate District 34, which in addition to Eddy County also includes Otero and Lea counties; Senate District 41, which is comprised of parts of Eddy and Lea counties; and Senate District 42, which has parts of Chaves, Eddy and Lea counties.
Janway said the city has a great relationship with its three senators, but given its surge in population over the years and the large amount of revenue it produces for the state through oil and gas development, it needs one state senator whose primary focus is on Carlsbad and Eddy County.
“It is harder for them to attend community events a mountain range away, for example, when there is a split between their constituents here and those who live in the district’s other communities,” Janway said in the statement.
Having the city split between three districts, he added, can also make it difficult for the city to get fair distribution of capital outlay funds when that money also must be distributed to other communities and counties within the district.
Some activists from Lea County said they also want to see two House districts in Hobbs — House Districts 61 and 62 — be represented by one representative.
Speaking through a translator, Gladys Saucedo, a resident of Hobbs, said the representatives in those districts do not represent the interests of the area’s large Hispanic community and that they only represent what she calls the owners of the oil and gas industry.
“Our community democracy and our interest is not the same as what they represent,” she said.
People can submit input or create a map of what they want a congressional or state legislative district to look like by visiting the committee’s website, https://www.nmredistricting.org/
Breaking news reporter Alex Ross can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 301, or breakingnews@rdrnews.com.
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