ALBUQUERQUE — Remember Constitutional Amendment 1, passed by voters statewide on Election Day?

It’s the amendment that increases the number of school board members from seven to nine and also allows school board elections to be conducted by mail-in ballot — but only for school districts that have more than 200,000 residents.

This means the statewide amendment — which passed Nov. 4 — actually only pertains to Albuquerque.

But while the amendment was approved statewide, in Bernalillo County the measure failed by a razor-thin 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent margin. In other words, the only place in the state affected by the amendment didn’t approve it.

And, as it turns out, most of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education members don’t think much of the amendment either. They voted 6-1 at their meeting Monday to ask the New Mexico Supreme Court to rule on whether the amendment is valid since it held two questions for voters.

The combination of two distinct questions in one ballot measure is referred to as “logrolling.” In this case, it’s the decision to expand the school board plus the decision to allow a mail-in ballot voting process for school board elections.

It’s this issue of logrolling that the district’s board members are questioning. Board member Dolores Griego told the Independent she voted with the majority to clarify the legal questions raised by the amendment. She said several attorneys have informed the board that the amendment improperly contained two questions for voters to decide.

“This could cause headaches for us down the road,” Griego said. “The first thing that needs to be done is clarify it. If the answer is yes, the amendment stands, then we move forward.”

But the lone dissenting school board member, Robert Lucero, told the Independent that the amendment isn’t an example of logrolling. He also said the decision to challenge the amendment is an effort to subvert the will of the Legislature and voters statewide. And at the school board meeting on Monday, he called the challenge a “slap in the face” to the West Side.

Lucero said his concern stems from the fact that the district he represents is three times the size of most other school board districts, due to the tremendous growth in population on the city’s West Side. He told the Independent that the other school board members should realize that increasing the board size to nine is a way to give West Side residents the representation they need on the school board. He contends the districts were “gerrymandered” during the redistricting process after the 2000 census and that the West Side has been under-represented on the school board ever since.

Gerrymandered or not, since 2000 the APS school population has shifted significantly to the West Side. In light of a budget crunch earlier in the year, APS spokeswoman Johanna King said in an interview that the shifting population was requiring the district to build new schools west of the Rio Grande even though there isn’t significant growth in the overall district:

It’s not growth, it’s a shift in enrollment. Areas of the city are changing, the population is shifting. For instance, we’re seeing decreased enrollment in schools in the Northeast Heights, and the schools on the West Side are very crowded. Edward Gonzalez Elementary School, for example, has 1,400 kids, so we need to split that enrollment by building another school on the West Side.

Lucero said the school board’s challenge isn’t a simple matter of gaining “clarity.” The Supreme Court will either give the amendment a “yea or a nay,” he said. And if it’s a nay, then the process will have to start all over again. For this reason, he said he would resume his efforts during the 2009 Legislature to split up APS, which is one of the largest districts in the nation.

He argues that the amendment isn’t an example of logrolling because the measure only established one concrete change — the expansion of the school board. The second component simply allows a mail-in ballot; it doesn’t mandate that elections be held in that manner.

However, if one looks at the pros and cons presented by New Mexico’s Legislative Council Service staff about the constitutional amendments on the Nov. 4 ballot, they clearly stated that current law explicitly limits the use of mail-in ballots, which suggests that allowing mail-in ballots is a significant change:

The proposed amendment creates confusion because it allows for mail-in ballots for school board members. This conflicts with current law, which strictly limits the use of mail-in ballots to elections on the imposition of a mill levy or a property tax rate for a specific purpose or any special election at which no candidates are nominated for or elected to office. Current law also prohibits mail-in ballots from being combined with an election that also requires in-person voting at a polling place.

According to APS spokesman Rigo Chavez, even if the school board didn’t challenge the amendment — the process of which will likely stretch well into 2009 — the act of redistricting would not happen before the upcoming school board elections in February. And, he said, redistricting will happen soon anyway.

After the 2010 census results, a redistricting process automatically kicks in. Given the shift in population, it’s highly likely the West Side will get more representation on the board.