SANTA FE – They have the numbers. Now they want greater influence.
Lawmakers and neighborhood advocates from Albuquerque’s rapidly growing area west of the Rio Grande are pushing for more representation – via the creation of new districts – in the state Legislature.
West Side legislators said during a Tuesday rally outside the Capitol that they’re gunning for at least three new seats in the House of Representatives and two new seats in the Senate during the ongoing special redistricting session.
That would mean consolidating existing districts in slower-growing parts of New Mexico, such as the eastern part of the state and swaths of Albuquerque east of the Rio Grande, because the total number of legislative seats is limited by the state Constitution.
“Democracy demands that we get three more House seats,” said Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque. “Where the seats come from is not a problem of the West Side.”
Overall, the state has grown in population by about 13 percent – or about 200,000 people – over the past decade.
However, the once-per-decade task of redrawing political boundary lines to reflect population change isn’t only about demographics – political factors also weigh heavily in the process.
Because consolidating existing districts frequently leads to incumbent legislators having to face off in elections, past redistricting plans have largely sought to minimize such consolidations.
Lawmakers and neighborhood advocates said Tuesday that’s caused the West Side and Rio Rancho to have a disproportionate representation in the Legislature, leading to less state infrastructure spending in the area.
“We think the West Side has been forgotten for too long … and hopefully, we’ll get the representation we deserve,” said Rep. Eleanor Chavez, a first-term Democrat.
One West Side lawmaker, Republican Rep. Thomas Anderson, currently has about 59,000 people residing in his district. That’s more than double the ideal House district population of 29,417 people, based on last year’s U.S. census.
Though no legislative redistricting plans had been voted on through Tuesday, Maestas said he sees a consensus forming over the creation of at least two new West Side districts – one that would come from the consolidation of two Roswell-area districts and another that would emerge from the pairing of two mid-Heights Albuquerque districts.
— This article appeared on page A4 of the Albuquerque Journal
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