New Mexico Senate cancels floor session on proposed redistricting map

Dec. 14—A redistricting map for New Mexico's 42 Senate districts remained in flux Monday as lawmakers and Native American leaders adamantly opposed to a substitute proposal met behind closed doors to try to hammer out an agreement.

A noon floor session to consider the proposed substitute of Senate Bill 2 first was postponed by three hours and then canceled altogether.

With the House of Representatives concluding its business and awaiting action from the Senate, Monday was a quiet day at a mostly empty state Capitol building.

"The fact that we did not have a floor session [in the New Mexico Senate] today is a good sign," Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, said. "It means people are listening to each other."

The move — rare during a legislative session — came a day after those Indigenous leaders and others protested the introduction of a substitute bill they said weakened a consensus plan developed by all of the state's tribes after eight months of work.

Native leaders decried the lack of consultation on the committee substitute, which sparked outcry even before it was introduced amid rumblings it no longer incorporated the tribal consensus plan in the redrawing of district boundaries.

After the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the new map, tribal leaders and others staged a silent protest by walking out of the committee meeting room on the third floor of the Roundhouse as the vote was announced.

Their response led Senate leaders to cancel the planned floor session to try to find a solution to the stalemate.

Native American representatives said Monday afternoon they intended to keep pushing lawmakers to stick to the original redistricting map plan, which tribal and pueblo leaders across the state agreed to, for the state Senate.

"The goal is to continue to maintain the consensus map considering it represented many, many months of work," said Casey Duma, co-chair of the All Pueblo Council of Governors and counsel for Laguna Pueblo.

"The right thing to do is to support the consensus map," said Regis Pecos, a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo and co-founder of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School, who took part in the behind-the-scenes discussion with Senate leaders.

He said supporting the map expresses support for Native American languages, culture and land.

"It's a way of life that cannot be compromised by the political process," he said.

Duma said the Sunday suggestion to alter the original map "raised concerns about the treatment of tribal leaders and the disregard of tribal input on that consensus map" and "definitely led to discussions."

Earlier this month the state's tribal nations and pueblos came together in a historic unifying action to approve maps for the House, Senate and U.S. Congress that would, among other goals, ensure they strengthen their voting power in at least six House districts statewide.

The House approved the map supported by that coalition late last week. House Democrats issued a news release Monday in which they urged the Senate to take action, particularly on an appropriations bill that would fund myriad transportation, broadband and other projects using federal coronavirus relief funds.

"We cannot keep our families and communities waiting for these results. We must get this critical legislation to the Governor for her signature so we can go back to our constituents and let them know that their New Mexico state government has got their back," House Democrats wrote in a statement.

The delay started Sunday when Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, sponsored a substitute proposal during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Among other goals, she said it unpairs two Senate Republican incumbents, Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca of Belen and Sen. Joshua Sanchez of Bosque, who would otherwise have had to run against one another in the same district in next year's election.

The proposed map also would change the boundaries of districts 3 and 4, which are currently represented by Sen. Shannon Pinto, D-Tohatchi, and Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, respectively.

Pinto, who is Native American, would represent 60 percent of Gallup while Muñoz, who is Hispanic, would represent the remaining 40 percent. Under the tribal consensus map, Muñoz said Gallup wouldn't be part of Senate District 4. Muñoz, who lives just outside city limits, said the district as it is now includes about a quarter of Gallup, whose population is about 76 percent Native American.

Kathleen Burke, project coordinator of Fair Districts New Mexico, a coalition of more than 30 organizations in the state, said the group had hoped the Senate and the House would select maps recommended by the independent and nonpartisan Citizen Redistricting Committee and make little changes to them.

"The House pulled that off a bit," she said. "The Senate, however, has ... kind of gone their own way. I don't think they chose a CRC map at all, but they designed what they wanted and then said, 'Well, this [Senate redistricting] map matches a CRC map 68 percent.' Well, 68 percent is a D in school, so for them to be proud of what's essentially a D grade is questionable."

However, Burke said the coalition doesn't believe the redistricting committee's work has been ignored.

"I think the legislators have consulted the maps; I think they've taken them into consideration," she said. "But they didn't adopt them wholesale, and instead they've taken bits and pieces, and they've designed their own maps. That's just pretty far from what we had hoped would happen. Our hope at this point is that they provide the public with justifications for having chosen to go this way. ... We have let them know that it's our expectation that [lawmakers explain themselves] to the public. That's good governing, so that there's transparency."

Redistricting efforts take place every 10 years as states use updated U.S. Census data to draw new boundaries for Congress, state legislative seats and, in New Mexico's case, the Public Education Commission.

Both the House and Senate have approved congressional redistricting maps, which are now on their way to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's office for her signature.

On Monday morning, the House met for about a half hour to unanimously approve a Public Education Commission redistricting map, which now awaits approval from the Senate. The House then adjourned as it awaits bills — including the Senate redistricting map — from the Senate.

The one-day Senate shutdown has also delayed movement on a bill appropriating federal American Rescue Plan Act money and legislation clarifying language for the state's Medical Malpractice Act. The House has already approved those bills.

The state Capitol was not entirely quiet. Around noon, about 150 community activists who put their weight behind the congressional redistricting map joined together to thank lawmakers for passing the bill and urged the governor to sign it into law.

The gathering was not a protest, said Andrea Serrano, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group OLÉ in Albuquerque, but rather a celebration.

"It feels like we were really heard," she said.

She said she is aware of the effort of tribal leaders to ensure the map they created is adopted by the Legislature and said her group supports that initiative.

"The consensus map they worked on should be the map chosen by the Senate," she said.

Ivey-Soto, who sponsored the original redistricting map along with Sen. Linda Lopez, also an Albuquerque Democrat, said he suspects negotiations between lawmakers and tribal leaders will produce a compromise redistricting map for the Senate.

"My prediction is we will not end up with the original Senate bill 2 by the time they're finished with these conversations," he said. "But we will also not end up with a committee [substitute proposal] as it was presented [Sunday] because when you talk to somebody, you naturally make changes to accommodate."

Pecos said the Native American communities know what is best for them and will will push to "not go back to that long history of being marginalized."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.