Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada tribes seek greater voice in redrawing of political maps

Nevada tribal leaders are asking for a seat at the table as the once-every-decade redistricting process gets underway.  

The Nevada Legislature’s Committee to Conduct an Investigation into Matters Relating to Reapportionment and Redistricting in Nevada heard Thursday from members of the Indigenous community about their census and redistricting concerns.

“Historically our community has not been represented, and decisions — which negatively impact our people, our life ways — are made without meaningful consultation with tribal leaders,” said Tammi Tiger, Las Vegas Indian Center board chairperson, at the meeting.

The Las Vegas Indian Center encouraged the subcommittee to hold a meeting specifically for tribal nations to give further input regarding redistricting.

“We hope that you will consider more engagement with Nevada tribal nations and communities to ensure we have better opportunity for representation,” Tiger said.

Redistricting is the decadal event of redrawing the boundaries for election districts to match with population shifts. Since the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that electoral districts must have equal population, or nearly equal population, so that each person’s vote has equal weight, according to the Nevada Legislature.

The process is expected to be contentious and will force lawmakers to weigh competing interests: whether to add new districts, protect incumbents, adhere to county lines or unify “communities of interest” to ensure they are adequately represented. They will try to do this all while drawing neat lines and avoiding accusations of gerrymandering — where odd-looking districts unite similarly minded voters living far apart, rather than those who live only blocks away.

Nevada typically redistricts in its every-other-year legislative sessions. But the pandemic delayed the timeline, and the U.S. Census Bureau didn’t send updated figures until after the Legislature adjourned in June. Gov. Steve Sisolak is expected to schedule a special redistricting session for November.

The 2020 Census found that Native Americans make up 1.4% of the state’s population, up from 1.2% from 2010. In 2010, there were about 32,000 Native Americans in Nevada, and that number grew to nearly 44,000 in 2020, a 37% increase, according to the census.

Despite that growth, tribes still have a lack of representation in elected offices, said Lance West, an enrolled member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe as well as principal of Schurz Elementary School, located on the tribal land in the Walker River Paiute Reservation in Mineral County.

The Walker River Paiute Tribe is split into two assembly and two senate districts,  and West hopes that it will be redistricted into one.

“We just want to be a part of one,” West said, “that way our voice is further empowered and strengthened.”

Republican state Sen. Pete Goicoechea, a member of the committee, said during the meeting that the request sounds doable.

Amber Torres, chairman for the Walker River Paiute Tribe located in the town of Schurz, said that during the census process, the census information gatherers did not consult the leadership of the tribe nor its people about the information it gathered and the changes that the subcommittee intended to make.

“We allowed you access to our homelands during a pandemic while our own membership (was) shut out from the reservation,” Torres said. “You in turn built that trust with our members and then used that information to make decisions about our community that best suits you, but not us.

“To me, I feel this is why people don’t want to share their information. As a tribal leader, as a tribal citizen in Nevada, it disheartens me. I feel that it is a blatant slap in the face to the people, to the membership.”

Some tribal leaders expressed concerns about changes in county lines; however, Research Director Michael Stewart assured them that the committee is looking at the district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives, the Nevada Senate, Assembly, and the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents.

“This is about seeing who in the Legislature and House of Representatives will be representing those communities,” Stewart said.

Maps have not been drawn yet, but the Nevada Legislature will develop maps that show possible new districts in the coming weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.