The New Mexico Supreme Court on Friday overturned a plan for new districts for the state House of Representatives and ordered a judge to draw a new map.

The court issued a 4-1 split decision that was a victory for Democrats and the Legislature, which had challenged a redistricting plan ordered last month by retired state District Judge James Hall.

The justices said the judge should try to develop a new redistricting plan by Feb. 27. The traditional filing deadline for House candidates is next month, but the uncertainty of the redistricting case has cast doubts over that schedule.

District boundaries must be adjusted for population shifts during the past decade and the goal is to equalize district populations as much as possible to ensure that each New Mexican's vote has equal weight. That's necessary to comply with the legal requirements of one person, one vote.

Hall used district configurations advocated by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and other GOP officials as the foundation for the plan he approved.

Democrats and the Legislature contended that the judge tried to equal district populations so closely that he sacrificed other redistricting principles, such as protecting the voting interests of Hispanics in parts of New Mexico.

The Supreme Court agreed and directed Hall to develop a "partisan neutral" plan for revamping district boundaries. The judge also is to consider whether changes can be made so communities such as Deming, Silver City and Las Vegas are not divided among districts.

The justices directed Hall to look at changing a Clovis-area district to ensure that Hispanic voters have a strong enough majority to have a good chance of electing the candidate of their choice.

Court of Appeals Judge Jonathan Sutin dissented from the decision, saying Hall "did not act arbitrarily" and his plan is "an appropriate stopping place" for redistricting.

"Democrats keep their statewide majority under the plan. Several districts with Republican advantage are competitive. Judge Hall's plan was in no way driven by partisan bias," wrote Sutin, who participated in the case because Chief Justice Charles Daniels recused himself. "Nothing in the record indicates that Judge Hall's goal, much less overriding goal, was to effect partisan change."

A spokesman for the governor, Scott Darnell, criticized the Supreme Court ruling and raised the possibility that the redistricting dispute could end up in federal court.

"This is a partisan decision that says political considerations are more important than the constitutional mandate of one-person, one-vote," Darnell said in a statement. "This attempts to turn the United States Constitution on its head, and the governor is confident the final redistricting map will protect the constitutional rights of New Mexicans, even if a federal court is forced to step in."

Hall approved a plan that dealt with rapid population growth in the state's largest metropolitan area by creating new seats in GOP-dominated Rio Rancho, a Republican-leaning seat in the Albuquerque area northwest of the Rio Grande and a Democratic-leaning seat on Albuquerque's west side.

To offset those changes, two southeastern New Mexico districts were consolidated. That placed Roswell Republicans Bob Wooley and Dennis Kintigh in the same district.

Two districts in north-central New Mexico also are merged, pairing Democrats Nick Salazar of Ohkay Owingeh and Thomas Garcia of Ocate into one.

Two Albuquerque incumbents -- Democrat Al Park and Republican Jimmie Hall -- were placed together in the same GOP-leaning district in the city. However, Park isn't seeking re-election but plans to run for the Public Regulation Commission.

The court's majority said the "incumbent pairings ... appear to have contributed to the partisan performance changes in the plan" and "created a partisan swing of two seats in favor of one party."

In particular, the justices took issue with the district consolidation that lumped Park and Hall together because the new district favors the GOP, "in effect tilting the balance for that party without any valid justification."

"The resulting district is oddly shaped in an area where compactness is apparently relatively easy to achieve, suggesting, at least in part, that the district was created to give partisan advantage to one party," the court's majority said. "This result was not politically neutral and raises serious concerns as to its propriety in a court-ordered plan that should be partisan neutral and fair to both sides."

Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales said the Supreme Court's ruling "was a victory for the people of New Mexico and the principle of one person, one vote. It was a rejection of Gov. Martinez's partisan maps that favored the interests of her political party over those of the people of this state."

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