Lawsuit asks San Juan County’s voting plan to be thrown out
LOS ANGELES
The Navajo Nation last week filed a lawsuit in federal court in Albuquerque accusing San Juan County officials of violating federal voting laws when it recently approved a redistricting plan for the county.
The lawsuit claims that the plan approved by the San Juan County Commission would put most of the county’s Native American population in one district, depriving them of the representation they should have on the county commission.
Named plaintiffs in the suit, other than the Navajo Nation, are the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, LoRenzo Bates, Jonnye Kaibah Begay, Gloria Ann Dennison, Tracy Dee Raymond and Bessie Yazzie Werito.
The lawsuit is asking the court to throw out the redistricting plan approved by the commission and replace it with one that would allow Native Americans to vote for two representatives on the commission, which has five members.
Named as defendants in the suit is the county, all five members of the current commission and the county clerk who oversees the county elections.
In the county’s plan, about 60% of the county’s Native population are in one district. The other 40% are divided among the remaining four districts.
The lawsuit points out that about two-thirds of the land is the county is tribal land.
Looking at the population in the county as a whole, 39.8% are Native American.
The lawsuit also notes that the New Mexico and San Juan County have a lengthy history of trying to subvert Navajo participation in county elections.
“Border communities such as Farmington have a long history of racism and violence against the Navajo people,” the suit states.
Under state law, counties and cities are required to develop a redistricting plan every 10 years after the federal census is done to provide fair representation to minority groups.
The process began last year on Nov. 30 when the commission held a public hearing during which four redistributing plans were discussed. Three of them had been developed by the county and the fourth came from the tribe’s human rights office.
The result of that meeting showed that none of the four plans were supported by a majority of the attendees so a decision was made to draw up a fifth plan.
The human rights office’s plan created two districts, which had a Native population comprised of 69% of the voters. The other three districts had Native populations of 11.9% to 37%.
What is even more important is that each district contained between 17,103 and 18,513 people which meets the commission’s directive to have no more than a 5% variation in district population size.
On Dec. 21, 2021, the commission, by a vote of four to one, approved the fifth plan, despite letters of protest from the tribe’s human rights office and the ACLU of New Mexico.
Both the human rights office and the ACLU pointed out that the plan approved by the county violates Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act and should be thrown out.
Over the past decade, many lawsuits such has this one ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and the defendants were required to accept the plan that met federal voting rights guidelines or come up with another plan that would be acceptable to the court.
While federal lawsuits sometimes take months of not years to adjudicate, those dealing with possible voting rights violations are fast-tracked since primaries will be held in June and people need to know as soon as possible in which district to file.
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