NM Supreme Court rejects Democrats’ argument in redistricting case

SANTA FE — The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to allow a lawsuit accusing Democrats of illegal partisan gerrymandering to move forward.

In a unanimous order Wednesday, the justices rejected the arguments of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other high-ranking Democrats who said the courts had no way to determine what constitutes illegal partisan gerrymandering.

At stake is a new congressional map that splits Albuquerque in two and creates a Democratic lean in all three of New Mexico’s congressional districts.

The Supreme Court ruled the equal protection clause of the New Mexico Constitution allows courts to take up claims of illegal partisan gerrymandering.

The justices acknowledged the “inherently political nature of redistricting” and said some partisan gerrymandering is permissible.

But they pointed to a three-part test outlined by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to determine whether a map goes too far.

Opponents of New Mexico’s congressional map, for example, can succeed if they demonstrate the predominant purpose of the map was to entrench Democrats in power. They must also show the lines had the desired effect, substantially diluting the votes of Republicans.

If they succeed on those points, the Democrats can still save the map by pointing to a legitimate, nonpartisan justification for the districts.

The legal clash comes after Democrats — who hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, in addition to the Governor’s Office — upended the state’s political landscape in a 2021 redistricting session.

For decades, New Mexico had three congressional districts oriented north to south — one covering Santa Fe and northern New Mexico, one based in Albuquerque and a third rooted in southern New Mexico.

The southern-most district has leaned Republican.

But the new map moves parts of Albuquerque into the southern district, creating a Democratic lean. Following its adoption, Republican Yvette Herrell lost her reelection bid last year.

Democrats contend the motive wasn’t partisan. The new map ensured each district had a mix of urban and rural areas, supporters said, creating more competitive districts across the board.

They also note that Democrats sometimes won the 2nd Congressional District under its old orientation, as recently as 2018, in fact.

Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Las Cruces Democrat and co-sponsor of the new map, said the legislative process creating the new districts met every legal and constitutional requirement.

“Any partisan considerations were secondary to creating truly competitive and diverse districts,” he said Wednesday. “My goal was to get away from past decades, and the national norm, where the districts were divided between the major political parties and drawn to preserve incumbents above all else.”

This week’s ruling sends the redistricting lawsuit back to District Judge Fred Van Soelen in Clovis.

In a ruling last year, he refused to toss out the map just before ballots went in the mail ahead of the primary election.

But he also said in a ruling that the state GOP and other plaintiffs had made a “strong, well-developed case that (the new map) is a partisan gerrymander created in an attempt to dilute Republican votes in Congressional races in New Mexico.”

Van Soelen is now set to apply the three-part Kagan test and other criteria when he evaluates the map.

Ash Soular, a spokeswoman for Republican Party of New Mexico, said the party was encouraged by the Supreme Court ruling and looks forward to the case proceeding in District Court.

She called the new congressional map “one of the nation’s most egregious cases of partisan gerrymandering.”

Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Caroline Sweeney said the decision simply “provided guidance on what should happen next at the district court level.

“We believe the court will find that the maps at-issue meet appropriate legal scrutiny.”

The plaintiffs in the case include the state GOP; state Sen. David Gallegos, R-Eunice; and Roswell Mayor Tim Jennings, a Democrat.

It was filed against Lujan Grisham, Lt. Gov. Howie Morales and legislative leaders in the state Senate and House, all Democrats.