Casting a vote seems simple, but it never is. How we split ourselves into voting groups has a big effect on who we elect. For example, Hurley, Bayard and Santa Clara have at-large elections for their governing bodies, but Silver City elects its council by district.
As a citizen of Silver City, I get to vote for one council member and for the mayor. If I think one of the other three council members is voting wrong, too bad. I can’t vote against them. But if I lived in Bayard, I would get to vote for all five council members, one of whom is the mayor. Nobody could get past my vote.
And of course we have similar systems at different levels. We have five districts for the Grant County Commission. We have districts for state senators, different districts for state representatives and still different ones for U.S. representatives. Everybody in the state votes for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and other offices that I can’t remember. We all vote for our two U.S. senators, and we all vote for the president, although indirectly.
Before we get to details, let’s look back at a weird historical anomaly that I discovered when researching this column. New Mexico used to elect its U.S. representatives at large. We had two representatives, elected at large, from 1943 to 1969. Then the two seats were converted to separate districts. A third congressional district was added in 1981.
Would you like to vote for (or against) Melanie Stansbury and Teresa Leger Fernandez as well as Gabe Vasquez? In recent years New Mexico has been mostly Democratic (except for the Susana Martinez era). That would mean that when New Mexico voted Democratic, Democrats would win all three seats. We wouldn’t have the partisan struggle for CD2 that we have had for the last eight years.
Consider how New Mexico’s congressional districts got drawn up in the last gerrymandering — uh, redistricting — session. All three districts got a piece of the Albuquerque metro area. In other words, there was an attempt to minimize differences and homogenize the districts. It worked out for the Democrats who planned it.
Remember when Congressional District 2 was Republican and Districts 1 and 3 were Democratic? But that’s when Silver City was a tiny liberal island, constantly outvoted by conservatives to our east. Our Republican congressman seldom set foot here. But even then, we had plenty of conservatives who felt outvoted in their own community.
The argument for districts is that different geographic areas vote differently. You get more diversity from districts with different geographies, ethnicities and economies. The argument for at-large elections is that everybody gets to vote for and against everybody. Every member of Congress or the state Legislature affects us, whether we can vote for them or not.
But towns have to reach a certain size before dividing into districts makes sense. Imagine splitting Hurley into districts. It would be reminiscent of the bad old days, when Hispanics were limited to certain parts of Hurley at certain times. Ask the oldtimers how that went.
In many large cities, district lines are drawn to increase ethnic and class divisions. There’s the Black district and the Asian district. Or maybe the division is economic — manufacturing, suburban and financial districts. Well, that’s not how it works here. We are the historic home of Buffalo Soldiers, Chinese Gardens and Apacheria, but electorally all that matters are Hispanics and Anglos, with Hispanics holding a thin majority. It would be naíve to think ethnicity has no effect in local elections, but it would be presumptuous to say what that effect is. We’re all kind of blended, except when we aren’t.
Are Silver City’s four council districts split into Anglo and Hispanic? Are they split into poor and rich? Well, maybe. Not really. Sort of. If you stare at the district map you might see patterns. Are the lines drawn at boundaries to separate us into groups? Or are they drawn across boundaries to get some of everything in each district?
Silver City’s districts, like those of Grant County and New Mexico, are reconsidered after each census. We last saw minor district changes in 2022. But we could choose to get rid of districts and go with an at-large system.
Few would argue that Grant County or New Mexico shouldn’t be divided into legislative districts, but Silver City is on the edge. Maybe we don’t have enough differences to justify separate districts. But I’m sure the discussion would be heated if we ever considered a change.
Bruce McKinney is a Silver City business owner, close observer of local government and occasional troublemaker. Send comments and ideas to bruce@ greensilverlinings.com.
