Two prominent New Mexico legislators stunned political observers this week by resigning from the state’s Fair Districts Task Force, igniting a fierce debate over the future of redistricting reform in both the Land of Enchantment and the nation at large. Their departures come as a new, nationwide wave of gerrymandering threatens to deepen partisan divides and further erode voter representation—leaving many to wonder whether fair districting is even possible without sweeping federal action.
On Monday, August 18, 2025, State Senator Harold Pope Jr. and Representative Cristina Parajón, both Democrats from Albuquerque, announced that they were stepping down from New Mexico’s Fair Districts Task Force, effective immediately. The move occurred just one day before the group was set to convene for a scheduled Tuesday evening meeting, and their reasons were anything but ambiguous. According to Albuquerque Journal reporting, both lawmakers expressed deep frustration that while New Mexico is pushing for redistricting reform, other states—particularly Texas, Ohio, and Missouri—are “allowed to gerrymander maps with impunity.”
Sen. Pope did not mince words in his resignation letter. “I cannot in good conscience continue serving under a framework that places rules and restrictions on New Mexico while states like Texas, Ohio, and Missouri are allowed to gerrymander maps with impunity,” he wrote. Pope argued that without federal legislation to create uniform rules, “the promise of equal representation is an illusion.” He went so far as to call the current situation “a rigged game that weakens the very foundations of our republic.”
Rep. Parajón, who represents House District 25, echoed these concerns and called for sweeping federal action. “Fairness is not asking one side to play a professional baseball game with wiffle ball bats,” she wrote in her resignation letter. Parajón urged Congress to pass comprehensive legislation—specifically, the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act—and to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Rucho v. Common Cause. “We need every single state, whether Republican or Democrat, to play by the same fair rules,” she concluded.
Their resignations have sent shockwaves through New Mexico’s political establishment, but they are not without critics. Sen. Jay Block, a Republican member of the task force from Rio Rancho, dismissed the resignations as “obvious political posturing.” In a statement released Tuesday by New Mexico Senate Republicans, Block said, “I literally laughed when I read the hypocritical statements from these two radical Democrats who, unsurprisingly, turn a blind eye to the blatant gerrymandering in New Mexico.”
Block further argued that New Mexico’s most recent redistricting efforts, far from being models of fairness, actually disadvantaged Republicans. He pointed out that in 2024, 46% of New Mexico voters cast their ballots for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, yet “have been denied anything except exclusive Democrat Party representation in our federal and statewide offices.” According to Block, Republican-held districts were “carved up” by Democrats during the last round of redistricting, leaving GOP voters without meaningful representation.
The controversy in New Mexico is hardly unique. According to an opinion piece by Sheldon H. Jacobson, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and founder of the Institute for Computational Redistricting, the entire nation is caught in a “redistricting war.” Writing for Nexstar Media on August 19, 2025, Jacobson described how President Trump’s recent push for Texas to redraw its congressional map could give the GOP as many as five additional House seats in the 2026 midterm elections. This move, Jacobson notes, has triggered a domino effect, with states like California, Ohio, Florida, and Indiana now considering their own aggressive redistricting maneuvers.
Jacobson’s analysis paints a bleak picture of the current landscape. After the 2020 census, only 36 of the 435 House seats were considered competitive in 2022—defined as races decided by less than a 5% margin. In 2024, that number rose slightly to 43, but the vast majority of congressional districts remain safe for one party or the other. Jacobson points to Massachusetts as a telling example: all nine of its congressional seats are held by Democrats, even though 36% of voters cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2024. Similarly, in Oklahoma, all five seats are held by Republicans, despite 32% of voters supporting Kamala Harris for president.
This, Jacobson argues, is not just a problem of gerrymandering, but a fundamental flaw in the way representation is determined. “Gerrymandered maps demonstrate that we no longer have representation of the people but of the parties, making Congress a de facto House of Mis-Representatives,” he writes. The winner-take-all system for congressional districts means that large blocs of voters can be effectively shut out of representation, depending on how the lines are drawn.
Is there a solution? Jacobson proposes a radical overhaul: allocate each state’s House seats proportionally, based on the statewide popular vote, rather than winner-take-all district contests. Under this system, the top vote-getters from each party would be assigned seats in proportion to their share of the vote. In Massachusetts, for example, Republicans would have won two seats and Democrats seven. In Oklahoma, Democrats would have secured one seat and Republicans four. “Such a process would neutralize the impact of gerrymandering,” Jacobson contends, “since each state’s haul of seats would be determined by the state popular vote, giving every eligible voter the added incentive to cast their vote.”
However, Jacobson acknowledges that implementing such a system would require a constitutional amendment—a heavy lift in today’s polarized political environment. “Without such a change, gerrymandering will continue to erode the influence of voters and elevate the power of parties,” he warns.
Meanwhile, New Mexico’s Fair Districts Task Force, chaired by retired judges and including legislators from both parties, was established to address the state’s own troubled history with redistricting. Previous efforts have faced criticism for geographic imbalances, with over-representation from Albuquerque and insufficient input from southern regions and Native American communities. The current task force was supposed to develop recommendations for the next redistricting cycle in 2031, aiming to minimize gerrymandering and ensure fairer representation.
But with the resignations of Sen. Pope and Rep. Parajón, the task force’s future—and the state’s hopes for reform—are now in question. Their departures highlight a broader national dilemma: as long as some states continue to gerrymander with impunity, others that pursue reform may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. The result, as both sides acknowledge, is a system where voters’ voices are too often drowned out by partisan maneuvering.
As the nation barrels toward the 2026 midterms, the battle over redistricting is only intensifying. Whether through federal legislation, constitutional change, or grassroots activism, the fight for fair representation is far from over—and the stakes for American democracy could hardly be higher.
