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The New Mexico Prosperity Project is a nonpartisan voter education organization, oriented toward providing information that will help promote more free enterprise prosperity in New Mexico. We provide information to help people learn how, when and where to register, to “early vote,” and to vote – and information on key public policy issues affecting the free enterprise economy. Tabs to the left and above provide lots of information to help in that process. We also periodically update our webpage information (below) regarding current issues facing New Mexico.
Finding solutions in Santa Fe and Washington: Although all elections are important, many see the 2012 elections as being of historical importance, at both the state and national level.
Despite that (or more likely because of that) for a long while, New Mexico voters did not even know who would be running in their districts (legislature or U.S. House), nor what the districts they as voters would be in. The lines now are coming into focus. Although the legislature and governor could not agree on redistricting (required after each ten-year census), a specially appointed judge has now been making the decisions.
The new districts reflect the population growth during the decade 2000 to 2010. Since legislators and the three U.S. House members are supposed to represent roughly the same number of people, high-growth areas will now have somewhat smaller geographic areas to capture their fair representation via new district lines, and those areas that lost population or showed almost no growth will find themselves in a larger district, in terms of sheer acreage, to end up with the same amount of representation.
Key results: For the three U.S. House districts, retired District Judge James Hall chose the “least-change” option. Because of population growth in the metro Albuquerque area, part of Valencia County (on the south edge of the metro area) will shift from the Albuquerque district (1st District) into the southern district (2nd District). The 2nd District also will get more precincts (in the Roosevelt County area on the East Side of the state), taken from the northern district (3rd District). In other words, the 2nd District, largely in eastern and southern New Mexico, showed population loss or growth not as strong as in Albuquerque and the North, so its geographic size grows for its single representative. All in all, though, only about 25,000 New Mexicans will be in a new congressional district.
The State House of Representatives districts also will be different as a result of another decision by Judge Hall. A major change is that the west side of Albuquerque and nearby Rio Rancho (all west of the Rio Grande) will get three new representatives, the result of what often is called “explosive population growth” in the area during the 2000-2010 period. To handle these three new seats in the 70-member State House of Representatives, the judge combined two districts in northern New Mexico presently held by Democrats into one; combines two districts in and around Roswell presently held by Republicans into one, and combines two districts in Albuquerque that are held by one Republican and one Democrat. Despite this, the Albuquerque Journal reported that many Democrats fear the new districts “could lead to GOP control of the chamber after nearly six decades of Democratic dominance.”
More recently, Judge Hall produced the map for redrawn State Senate districts (the result of a negotiated compromise by the various parties). It, also, bows to the reality of rapid growth during 2000-2010 in the western part of the Albuquerque metro area, with one new Senate seat for the West Side and one new one for adjoining Rio Rancho. As a result, something had to give and that was to merge two Republican-held slots in southeastern New Mexico, now held by Rod Adair of Roswell and William Burt of Alamogordo. Also combined will be two Democratic districts in south-central Albuquerque now occupied by Jerry Ortiz y Pino and Eric Griego – although Griego is not running again, anyhow, in order to give a try for a congressional seat.
Information on districts, who represents you, where and how to register, will always be provided by the New Mexico Prosperity Project
On the issues front: Faced with impossible-to-ignore financial realities, members of the Legislature and Congress are trying to chart a path toward a sustainable future. As for the national debt crisis, elected officials and opposing candidates in many cases offer sharply distinct plans for what should be done. To over-simplify, one broad camp says that the lingering, stubborn recession is no time to cut many governmental programs now that people need them the most – or, in fact, that more taxes need to be raised to mend up the fraying social safety net. The other camp says the government’s years or even decades of profligate spending has maxed out – that the government must downsize and reduce the amount of cash it takes in taxes from hard-strapped individuals and businesses.
Congress, unable to resolve the arm-wrestling between the two increasingly angry camps, punted the issue to a “supercommittee,” whose members also seemed to mirror the same chasms of the larger Congress and the society as a whole -- and thus stalled out with no solutions offered after months of wrangling.
If you are alarmed at the inability of Washington’s elected officials to reach agreement on solutions as the nation’s cumulative debt reaches the equivalent of 100 per cent of annual gross domestic product (GDP), then please take action and let Washington know you are tired of intransigence -- and urge a bipartisan solution. On the left you will see a “take action” button. Go there and then click on the first option – “restoring growth to America.” Act now to help avoid the danger of sliding farther downhill as the European Union is doing.
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