Redistricting Edgewood, Round 2

As a follow-up to my letter to the editor regarding Edgewood redistricting lines, I’m offering the following information to keep the community updated on the redistricting process to date. Edgewood should be regarded as a “Community of Interest” in this process because of the inefficient way it’s currently districted. Our goal should be to consolidate Edgewood into ONE Congressional and ONE State House district (it is already in one State Senate district).

The NM Citizens Redistricting Committee (nmredistricting.org) has concluded its first round of public input meetings and has scheduled its second and final round to tentatively begin on September 16. The New Mexico Legislature is scheduled to meet in a special session on or about December 1 to adopt the new redistricting maps.

Public comment is encouraged, is still open and available at portal.newmexico-mapping.org. At that link you may also view some proposed maps that the committee will be considering for presentation to the NM State Legislature for their consideration in December. If you wish to make a public comment it should be made before Labor Day.

Four statewide redistricting maps will be redrawn: Congressional, State Senate, State House and Education districts. Three versions of each will be presented to the Legislature during the special session. Gerrymandering for racial, cultural, economic advantage or incumbency preservation will hopefully be avoided.

The letter and spirit of the Open Meetings Act has been urged by the Citizens Redistricting Committee and the watchdog group, Fair Districts NM (fairdistrictsnm.org). The public is encouraged to attend the Legislative Special Session on redistricting when it’s held in December (it’s not clear whether it will be held in-chamber, online, or hybrid).

Evelyn Vinogradov Edgewood Voter