NM: State Supreme Court Opinion On Partisan Gerrymandering
SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court Friday issued an opinion providing additional guidance to a trial court for resolving a partisan gerrymandering challenge to New Mexico’s congressional districts.
The Court’s unanimous opinion provides the legal reasoning for an order by the justices in August that allowed a congressional redistricting lawsuit to move forward to trial to determine whether alleged partisan gerrymandering violated rights protected by New Mexico’s Constitution.
The lawsuit contends that boundaries of New Mexico’s three congressional districts were drawn by the Democratic-controlled Legislature to unlawfully dilute the voting strength of Republicans in the 2nd Congressional District and allow Democrats to win the seat in an area of the state that traditionally favored GOP candidates. A three-day trial in the case is scheduled to start Sept. 27 in Lovington.
In an opinion by Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, the Court concluded that a partisan gerrymandering claim can be adjudicated by state courts under the Equal Protection Clause of the New Mexico Constitution, Article II, Section 18. The Court noted that it has previously interpreted the state Equal Protection Clause as “providing broader protection” than its federal counterpart in the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The justices explained that state courts have an obligation to protect the right to vote, which is “the essential democratic mechanism” for securing other guarantees in the New Mexico Bill of Rights in Article II of the constitution: the Popular Sovereignty Clause in Section 2, The Right of Self-government Clause in Section 3, and the Freedom of Elections Clause in Section 8.
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