{"id":43193,"date":"2021-12-17T12:38:25","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-governor-approves-3-district-congressional-map\/"},"modified":"2021-12-17T19:38:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T19:38:25","slug":"new-mexico-governor-approves-3-district-congressional-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-governor-approves-3-district-congressional-map\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico governor approves 3-district congressional map"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A choir group from Eastern New Mexico University performs at the Capitol Rotunda in Santa Fe on Nov. 17. New COVID-19 restrictions will ban unvaccinated members of the public from the building during the upcoming legislative session. Separately, Democratic lawmakers have recently banned guns from the building citing security concerns. (Cedar Attanasio\/Associated Press file)<\/span>Cedar Attanasio<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA FE \u2013 New Mexico Democratic governor signed legislation Friday to redraw the state’s three congressional districts and divide a conservative stronghold into multiple districts over the objections of Republicans.<\/p>\n

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a former three-term congresswoman, on Friday said the new congressional map establishes a \u201creasonable baseline for competitive federal elections, in which no one party or candidate may claim any undue advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consultants to the Legislature say the new congressional map gives Democrats an advantage in all three districts to varying degrees, based on past voting behavior.<\/p>\n

Republicans need a net gain of five seats in 2022 to take control of the U.S. House and effectively freeze President Joe Biden\u2019s agenda on everything from climate change to the economy.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s southern 2nd District has been historically dominated by Republicans. GOP U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, won the district in 2020 by ousting a one-term Democrat.<\/p>\n

Under the new district map, the 2nd District would incorporate heavily Hispanic neighborhoods of Albuquerque and cede portions of an oil producing region in southeastern New Mexico. Those changes also hold political implications for first-term Democratic U.S. Reps. Melanie Stansbury of Albuquerque and Teresa Leger Fernandez of Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

Republicans have warned that the congressional map is aimed at imposing political representation that is hostile to a thriving oil and natural gas industry in the southeast of the state.<\/p>\n

State Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth said the districts each bring together urban and rural residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new Congressional map creates districts where we have to work together \u2013 rural and urban, north and south, and Democrats, Republicans and Independents. That is a good thing,\u201d Wirth said in a statement.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Democrat-led New Mexico state Senate endorsed a new map for its own political boundaries that embraces recommendations from Native American communities for shoring up Indigenous voting blocs in the northwest of the state.<\/p>\n

Republicans opposed the Senate redistricting bill that would pit two incumbent, Hispanic Republican senators against each other in the same district for the next election cycle.<\/p>\n

The bill moved to the House on Friday, where Republican House minority whip Rod Montoya of Farmington said the Senate map placed Democratic and Native American priorities over the interests of other communities, including politically conservative Latinos.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you are a New Mexico Hispanic with certain priorities, you have a target on your back,\u201d said Montoya, a Latino legislator whose wife and children are Native Americans of Navajo descent.<\/p>\n

Democratic state Sen. Shannon Pinto, a Navajo Nation member from Tohatchi, described her vote for the bill as a gesture of appreciation for sovereign tribal nations and the state Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this vote, I believe there is a table out there where we can sit and nobody is higher than one another,\u201d said Pinto, whose grandfather was a Navajo code talker in World War II and served in the state Legislature until his death in 2019. \u201cWith this vote, the voices of those overlooked are not silenced. … I believe one day there will be justice for all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A choir group from Eastern New Mexico University performs at the Capitol Rotunda in Santa Fe on Nov. 17. New COVID-19 restrictions will ban unvaccinated members of the public from the building during the upcoming legislative session. Separately, Democratic lawmakers have recently banned guns from the building citing security concerns. (Cedar Attanasio\/Associated Press file)Cedar Attanasio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43193"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}