Advisory panel endorses redistricting maps for New Mexico

By MORGAN LEE
Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — An advisory panel on political redistricting has advanced three proposals for overhauling district boundaries in New Mexico’s Democrat-dominated House of Representatives, with special deference to Native American communities. Two of the endorsed redistricting maps conform to proposals from Indigenous nations and tribes in northwestern New Mexico, a celebrated cradle of ancient civilization where a recent decline in population threatens to disrupt and dilute majority-Native American voting districts. The maps endorsed by the Citizens Redistricting Committee are nonbinding. New Mexico’s heavily Latino and Native American population presents unusual challenges in efforts to unite communities of interest and give minority voters a fair shot to elect candidates of their choice.