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| Susana Martinez |
Governor Martinez provided detailed explanations for her veto of each bill, outlining some of the specific problems that call into question the fairness, appropriateness, and even constitutionality of the measures that were sent to her desk. With respect to the House of Representatives redistricting plan, the legislature’s own demographer admitted that the plan intentionally over-populates districts in Albuquerque, while under-populating certain rural areas. He explained that keeping rural districts on the lower end of the population deviation allowed leadership in the House and Senate to preserve the number of districts in those regions. According the Governor's statment, Democrats used this strategy to avoid moving a Democratic district in north central New Mexico, which has not kept pace with state-wide population growth, to the Westside of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, areas that have experienced explosive growth. Martinez called the Democrats tactics "manipulation of population deviations, a tactic that has been found to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court."
The Martinez press release went farther: "Such a plan does not demonstrate appropriate regard for the “one person, one vote” principle, as it dilutes the voting strength and representation of a significant number of New Mexicans, and in some cases, leaves high-growth areas over-populated, which will guarantee the increased dilution of representation in those areas for years to come. In both chambers, the House plan had bipartisan opposition.
The Senate plan suffers from similar flaws. When the sponsor of the Democrats’ Senate redistricting map presented the plan in the Senate Judiciary Committee, she was asked directly if the proposal was fair, balanced, bipartisan, and reflected an attempt to compromise. Her response was, “I would prefer not to answer that” - a strong indication of the Democratic majority’s effort to pass a partisan map that reduced political competition and rejected any attempts to compromise. Moreover, in packing population into Republican districts and under-populating Democratic districts, the map not only allows for the creation of more Democratic districts, but the population disparity also ensures that the votes of some New Mexicans will count more than others, depending upon where they happen to live. 
“The purpose of redistricting is to fairly equalize population among districts to ensure that New Mexicans have an equal voice in their representation,” said Martinez. "Unfortunately, the Democratic leaders chose to pack thousands more New Mexicans in the districts of certain areas – including Albuquerque and its fast-growing Westside in the House plan – to avoid creating new districts that would provide New Mexicans with the representation they deserve. That tactic is clearly unconstitutional and I have no choice but to veto these plans. Despite our best efforts to develop a compromise, Democratic leaders have refused to negotiate and have chosen the courts over compromise – and that’s their costly decision.” SB 41 would have split a precinct, providing for the separation of the Mesa del Sol area from Isleta Pueblo. The legislation represents an unjustified end-run around the Precinct Boundary Adjustment Act, an existing law which provides a mechanism for the secretary of state, boards of county commissioners, and county clerks to adjust precinct boundaries as necessary. Moreover, it is an example of politicians attempting to pick and choose their voters rather than allowing voters to choose their representatives and senators. In this case, the rationale for splitting the precinct even relied on projections about growth in the precinct – not actual growth. Full veto messages for each bill can be found on the Governor’s website at:
House Map -PRC Map -
Senate Map-
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