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View Full Version : And just who is your state rep.?


Zoidberg
05-18-2009, 08:03 AM
Oddly enough, I bet if you ask this question to a typical Roswell resident, I imagine you get "I don't know" or a wrong answer much more often than is typical.

One reason for this is that the city of Roswell has four state representatives: Kintigh, Ezzell, Espinoza, and Gardner. That might on the surface not seem so odd, but when you consider that each state rep has a constituency of about 26000 people, that means Roswell proper would logically only have about 2 (and thus we have to share each one of them with far-flung communities including Alamogordo and Portales.

Even more irritating, there doesn't seem to be a Roswell street-level map that I can find online, anywhere, that delineates where is in whose district.

So what's everyone's take on this? Was this an attempt to divide-and-conquer by a politically motivated redistricting committee? Do a lot of people in Roswell prefer it this way because it gives them four, not two, voices in the house?

saw
05-18-2009, 06:56 PM
Why can't we have two or three state reps (based on population) for Chaves County and two state senators at large for each county ? Our state senators cover parts of Lincoln Co. plus. Lea County's state senators covers part of Chaves County.

What we have have is known as gerrymandering. (to create an election district in such a form as to give unfair advantage to one political party)

You know why, This is New Mexico!

Daisy
05-19-2009, 02:49 PM
It is very confusing to me, too. I don't blame people for not knowing who their reps are.

I couldn't find a city map showing the districts, either. This is the closest thing I could find as to what precinct people are in. It helped me when I was trying to figure this all out sometime ago.

http://co.chaves.nm.us/precincts.htm

Zoidberg
05-19-2009, 03:58 PM
Thanks Daisy.

That helped me out a lot too.

Dist. 66: Downtown Roswell (Historical District, more or less), north and east of there, jogging in the oddest sort of way to make its way east and north of town. If there's gerrymandering involved with any district, it'd be this one. I suppose if I had to create a new district out of the other three, take equally from each, and preserve the rural/urban mix, I might come up with something similar.

Dist. 57: Everything north of Country Club (with exceptions where 66 is involved)

Dist. 59: Everything west of N. Main/S. Main and south of CC (gets a little screwy when involving the Base) (with exceptions where 66 is involved)

Dist. 58: Everything east of N. Main/S. Main and south of CC (with exceptions where 66 is involved)

All four reps are Republicans (no surprise there) and interestingly enough, all four live in Roswell (well, one lists a Roswell PO box and ranches in Chaves Cty).