The New Hampshire Legislature is embarked on the every-10-years exercise of redrawing electoral districts for state representatives, state senators, executive councilors and members of Congress.

As a resident of Canaan, I am deeply concerned that Canaan now lacks the Canaan-specific state representative that we ought to have, based on our population — in accordance with Part 2, Article 11 of the New Hampshire Constitution.

Rather, we are represented (in theory) by two individuals from the rather distant town of Wentworth who have no direct experience with the particular economic, infrastructure, human service and school district needs of Canaan and the Mascoma Valley.

So, I have been watching the work of the House Special Committee on Redistricting rather closely as it wraps up its proposals in the next several weeks and makes its recommendations to the full House of Representatives.

Having a fair, nonpartisan, nonideological redistricting process is something that all New Hampshire citizens should care about, but I would especially recommend that the residents of Canaan and Enfield pay close attention to this process and make their voices heard.

There is at least one proposal in play that not only doesn’t correct Canaan’s unconstitutional lack of a Canaan-specific representative district but also proposes taking away Enfield’s existing town-specific representative district.

One local watcher of the restricting effort recently commented, “Taking away Enfield’s town district (would be) a particularly brazen defiance of its current constitutionally correct status.”

With these and other concerns in mind, I wrote to the Committee on Redistricting, (and you can do likewise at http://gencourt.state.nh.us/remotecommittee/redistricting/).

The committee chair is Rep. Barbara Griffin, of Goffstown, (barbara.griffin@leg.state.nh.us).

The committee’s last public hearings will be the week of Nov. 8.

In my letter, I emphasized the following points:

■ What criteria is the committee using as it makes final recommendations about New Hampshire electoral districts, especially at the state representative level?

And to dig deeper into the detail behind this question: Is it using the imperatives of the New Hampshire Constitution as a guide?

And to what extent is the committee considering the reality of “communities of interest,” such as school districts or regional planning districts or economic regions?

■ The New Hampshire Constitution states that, “When the population of any town or ward, according to the last federal census, is within a reasonable deviation from the ideal population for one or more representative seats, the town or ward shall have its own district of one or more representative seats.”

As of 2020, the “ideal population” thus referred to was 3,444 — meaning a town having a population of at least 3,444 shall have its own state representative district or districts.

Legally, shall means shall, does it not? It doesn’t mean “if you feel like it.” It doesn’t mean “maybe.” It doesn’t mean, “Do this unless you decide it’s too hard.”

“Shall” obviously didn’t matter the last time around for redistricting when 62 New Hampshire towns were denied their constitutional right to their own representative, including my own town of Canaan.

I am sure the committee is well aware of this constitutional violation. So, as it began its work, did it begin with asking, “Where are our state representative districts in constitutional violation?” And did it make fixing these constitutional violations a top priority? If not, why not? The whole state deserves to know this.

■ Canaan residents have been robbed of our constitutional right to our own state representative — much to our town’s detriment, as the Canaan Selectboard has already communicated to the committee quite eloquently. As I live on the Enfield town line, I am interested in policy decisions that affect Enfield, as well. Enfield also meets the population threshold for having its own state representative and, rightfully, it has one today.

So imagine my shock and dismay that a draft proposal before the committee would take away Enfield’s constitutionally required single-representative district while also continuing to ignore Canaan’s constitutional right to a single-representative district.

Not only is the “shall” in the New Hampshire Constitution still being ignored, but this particular proposal takes us backward in terms of constitutionality.

If Enfield residents and civic leaders are aware of this proposal, I am sure they are outraged.

Just imagine if New Hampshire citizens generally regarded our laws and constitutional requirements as discretionary rather than legal requirements. The civically damaging scenarios are endless. (“I’m sorry officer. I violated that law because it was just too hard to comply.” I am sure that would go over well.)

As a United Church of Christ pastor, I care deeply about the common good and maintaining a just and fair-minded government, and I believe there are moral imperatives in the redistricting process. I worry, however, that fairness and constitutionality might not be the priorities of the current redistricting process.

Gail Kinney, of Canaan, is the worker justice minister at the Meriden (N.H.) Congregational Church/United Church of Christ.