After the high court Monday upheld the ruling of a Republican district court judge approving of the new district, the state GOP said:
The court leaned heavily on the closeness of the last election. Without the specific factor of the previous election that included a popular Republican incumbent and an unknown Democratic challenger, the effects of the (Democratic) entrenchment would be prominent.
In 2022 Republican US Rep. Yvette Herrell was defeated by a tiny 0.7 percent margin by Dem Gabe Vasquez. The two are now preparing to square off in a 2024 rematch. All major nonpartisan Congress watchers rate that rematch a toss-up, favoring neither party.
The problem with the GOP argument that legislative Democrats gerrymandered their way to power in the southern district is that the Dems only accomplished a partial gerrymander. The legal standard to throw out a map is an "egregious" gerrymander. In other words, essentially the door would have to have been slammed shut on any Republican victory in order for the boundaries to be unconstitutional.
Those doors were far from shut for Republican Herrell in '22. Now in '24 she is leading Vasquez by a point--46 to 45--in the first public poll of the race.
The court can't involve itself in the personalities of the day and entertain speculation that a weaker Republican would have no chance. That's political analysis not legal doctrine. The evidence shows Republicans have a very realistic chance of victory. The court has to look for signs of an obviously unfair playing field and make a long-term decision that will stand ten years until the next redistricting.
This new map has now delivered two of the most competitive congressional elections in state history. That's not to say that swapping out parts of the oil counties from the old district and replacing them with sections of ABQ's South Valley doesn't improve Democratic chances. It does. But the law is realistic and allows for political parties to partake in the spoils of victory--just not to gorge themselves at the table.
RULING REACTION
Full GOP reaction statement to Supreme Court ruling is here. Democratic Party reaction here.
Good government group Common Cause said:
The redistricting process was more accessible and transparent this time, due to the involvement of the Citizen Redistricting Committee, but we can make it better. Common Cause continues to support a truly independent--not advisory--redistricting commission with binding authority.BALDERAS, RAR AND WALGREENS
The ABQ firm and two out of state firms received 33 percent of a $453 million state settlement with Walgreens over opioid abuses. Other states paid their lawyers just 12 percent in their major pharmacy lawsuits.
Critics charge Balderas with making a sweetheart deal because of his long personal friendship with Marcus Rael, Jr., the firm's managing partner. But in an op-ed the former two term Dem attorney general, now president of Northern New Mexico College, makes his case against those critics:
The 12% attorney fee figure paid to outside attorneys in the national settlement that is being held up as a supposed reference for criticism does not account for a state that decided it had to take Walgreens to trial in order to get a fair recovery for its people. Because New Mexico took Walgreens to trial, and even after New Mexico paid its lawyers, New Mexico still received almost eight times the treatment money the state would have otherwise received had it merely accepted the national deal. That is eight times more treatment dollars, eight times more narcan, eight times more beds in treatment centers, eight times the funding for county and local governments. Taking a multi-billion dollar company to trial for seven weeks required a team of more than 50 lawyers, litigating New Mexico’s case for more than seven years before it got to trial. All of that cost was borne not by the taxpayers of New Mexico, but by these outside firms.
The State Ethics Commission recently said contingency fee agreements such as the one in the Walgreens suit should fall under the state Procurement Code.
"Considering both the significant representations that attorneys take under contingent-fee agreements (e.g., pursuing New Mexico's recovery from the opioid-abuse epidemic in this state) and the large sums that contract attorneys may recover in these representations (e.g., a $148 million fee in one opioids-related case alone), the Procurement Code should apply to constrain how state agencies select law firms," the commission wrote.
Balderas said in a statement he agreed with the commission's conclusion, "which is why my office used a competitive bid process under the Procurement Code to hire all outside legal counsel, including those that the State paid no fee to."
THE BOTTOM LINES
In a first draft Monday we blogged that ABQ City Council run-off election candidate Jeff Hoehn had received public financing for his campaign. He is receiving private financing. The District 6 run-off election is December 12 with early voting now underway.
(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2023