Mayor, councilwoman spar as Henderson adopts new ward maps

The Henderson City Council adopted a new redistricting plan Tuesday following a contentious exchange in which Mayor Michelle Romero and Councilwoman Carrie Cox accused each other of politicizing the process.

The council voted 4-1 in favor of adopting an ordinance which moves one precinct in Cox’s Ward 3 into Councilman Dan Stewart’s Ward 4, with Cox being the lone representative to vote against the proposal. The move will transfer an estimated 4,850 voters into Ward 4, according to supporting documents attached to Tuesday’s meeting agenda, and is less disruptive than an alternative plan that could have impacted about 11 percent of the city’s population.

But the proceeding was temporarily halted after Cox repeatedly spoke when it wasn’t her turn while the council was questioning Andrew Powell, Henderson’s chief planning manager and demographer, who was tasked with creating and presenting the two redistricting maps that were under consideration. Romero had instructed the council to ask their questions in the order of their wards, but ultimately called a brief recess after Cox continued to speak over the mayor and other council members.

“If you don’t stop going out of order, I’m going to call a recess,” Romero said to Cox after striking her gavel and attempting to allow Ward 1 Councilman Jim Seebock to question Powell.

“I’ve just had accusations made about me in my good name,” Cox said, referring to comments made moments prior in which Romero accused Cox of politicizing the redistricting process. “We’re not going to go through this process when the mayor has done what she just did.”

Romero, Cox and others all continued to bicker until Romero ordered the recess. As the council was walking away from the dais, Cox and Ward 2 Councilwoman Monica Larson continued to argue and were each heard calling the other “corrupt.”

Last week, Cox accused Romero of authorizing the use of secret internal population estimates to necessitate redistricting ahead of Cox’s re-election campaign. Cox and Romero, an at-large representative, are the only council members facing re-election in 2026. Romero and the city have rebuffed Cox’s claims.

Romero in her questions to Powell mentioned the press release issued by Cox’s campaign, which characterized the redistricting effort as a “blatant attempt to manipulate voter demographics in Ward 3 and silence specific voices in the community,” and again refuted Cox.

“The only person attempting to mislead the residents of Henderson, politicize this routine procedure for the second time, and suggested the law not be followed, and that there be unequal representation of our residents is the councilwoman making these accusations,” Romero said.

In statements provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Wednesday, both officials said their conduct was justified.

“As I have previously stated, the city charter sets out the redistricting process for us to follow in a legal, transparent way,” Romero’s statement read. “Last week Ms. Cox began a misleading and defamatory campaign against me and her fellow council members over redistricting. Her actions and words last night were inappropriate and disruptive to the city staff, our residents, and my colleagues.

“As a grandmother of 11, I know a tantrum when I see one, unfortunately, that’s what our citizens saw from an unhinged Ms. Cox last night, in her blatant attempt to politicize this process while showing complete disregard for council decorum,” Romero said.

Cox in her statement said the information revealed during the meeting was “important and revealing” to the reliability of the redistricting numbers.

“I pointed out several critical mistakes with the numbers,” Cox said in a statement. “The mayor chose to make the questioning of the data and the lack of transparency personal for self-serving political purposes. My response to her as a result of her presentation was warranted. What kind of leader would I be if I sat back and took that kind of vicious personal attack and didn’t speak up for the 40,000 residents whose voting rights were being infringed upon. I was not out of order. I was asking for the truth.”

Powell said this redistricting effort marks the seventh since 2010, and is the first since the council voted in 2023 to redraw the city’s political map, and maintained that the redistricting plans that were considered Tuesday were in accordance with the Henderson City Charter, municipal code and state law.

The Henderson City Charter calls for redistricting whenever the number of registered voters in a given ward exceeds another ward by more than five percent, as determined by the city’s demographer.

The ward map cannot be changed during any year in which a general election is held, and is required by law to be completed six months prior to the candidate filing period, which for the 2026 election will run from March 2 to March 15.

Cox has argued that Henderson should base its redistricting figures based on the census. But Powell said the city has gone through such rapid growth for so long that redistricting on a once-per-decade basis would create wards with very different populations.

“If we were, for instance, to go 20 years without redistricting, given the high rate of growth that we’ve seen, we could see upwards of a 20-25 percent difference in population between some of the wards,” Powell said. “And that would effectively serve to dilute the voting power of some of the residents in some of those faster-growing wards.”

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Casey_Harrison1 on X or @casey-harrison.bsky.social on Bluesky.