Redistricting Battle Moves to Courtroom : Remapping: Chicano Federation asks judge to stop the City Council from adopting its own redistricting map rather than one drawn up by an advisory committee.

The increasingly acrimonious battle over the San Diego City Council’s redistricting plan escalated at City Hall and in federal court Tuesday, with council members trading bitter accusations as opponents of the proposed plan went to court to try to overturn it.

At an afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court, an attorney for the San Diego County Chicano Federation asked Judge John Rhoades to reject the council’s redistricting plan in favor of a version proposed by a citizens’ advisory committee that Latino activists argue better protects minority voting rights.

City attorneys, however, argued that it would be premature for the judge to act on that request, saying the council’s 5-4 approval Monday of the redistricting plan was only the first step toward its passage.

Until final action is taken on the redrawing of the eight council districts’ lines, they said, it cannot be determined whether the proposal violates or complies with federal voting-rights laws and the settlement of a 1988 Chicano Federation lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of San Diego’s electoral system.

After listening to both sides trade arguments that turned largely on semantics and procedural questions, Rhoades scheduled another hearing for Friday.

That session, which in essence will be a hearing on whether to hold yet another hearing later this month, will decide whether Rhoades should immediately consider the merits of the case and the Chicano Federation’s charges or wait until after final council adoption of the redistricting plan.

Following Tuesday’s court hearing, the growing redistricting dispute shifted to behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Late Tuesday, Chicano Federation attorney Patricia Meyer privately relayed a message to city officials that, depending on one’s perspective, can be seen as either a settlement offer or a threat.

Unless the council agrees to reverse itself by adopting the advisory board’s recommendation, Meyer told city attorneys, she intends to pursue the original lawsuit, a course that conceivably could result in the federal courts, rather than the council, deciding the matter. The council is expected to meet in closed session today to review that demand, which is little more than a restatement of the position Meyer took earlier in court.

Tuesday’s legal and political squabbling, which sometimes was difficult to distinguish, stemmed from the council’s decision Monday to substantially alter the proposed redistricting map submitted to it by a 17-member citizens’ advisory board appointed by the council and the mayor early this year.

Beyond rectifying the district-to-district population imbalances that occurred over the past decade, the panel also was charged with developing a redistricting plan that would help settle the Chicano Federation lawsuit.

Among other things, the Chicano Federation alleged in the suit that past redistricting has “fractured” Latino votes by dividing them among multiple council districts, thereby minimizing minority communities’ political clout.

Hoping to avert federal court intervention, the redistricting panel proposed a Latino-majority district in the 8th District, increasing its number of Latino residents from the present 40.3% to 52.2%. In so doing, however, the board proposed boundaries that would exclude 8th District Councilman Bob Filner from his district, setting the stage for the political showdown that occurred at City Hall on Monday.

During Monday’s council hearing, an alternative redistricting map that was made public only hours earlier quickly drew support from a five-member council majority that included Filner, whose residence would be back within the confines of the 8th District under the new plan. That proposal would also divide the high-growth communities in northern San Diego, most of which were contained in the 5th District under the advisory board’s plan, among three districts and would dramatically alter the composition of several other districts.

The anger that dominated Monday’s council debate heightened Tuesday, as council members traded rhetorical barbs, guided by their pleasure or dissatisfaction with the revised plan.

“It’s the worst gerrymander I ever saw,” complained Councilman Bruce Henderson, whose 6th District underwent wholesale changes--”outright rape,” in the words of one of his top aides--that would make his 1991 reelection substantially tougher.

“It was really shameful,” added Mayor Maureen O’Connor. “It’s a joke, except it’s not very funny.”

Though former Chicano Federation Director Jess Haro called the council-approved plan an “illegal dilution” of Latino voting strength in the 8th District, Filner said Tuesday that the new boundaries would only reduce the number of Latinos there by about 1 percentage point to 51%, preserving it as a Latino-majority district.

“If you just look at the numbers, I don’t see what all the commotion is about,” Filner said. However, as one of Monday’s clearest winners, Filner could afford to be sanguine. Not only was his new Burlingame house incorporated into his district, but Filner also would retain downtown and Balboa Park under the new map--areas that he would have lost to 2nd District Councilman Ron Roberts under the advisory board plan.

In any event, before Rhoades begins to “look at the numbers,” he must first decide Friday whether to side with the city or the Chicano Federation on the key procedural question of when that judgment should be made.

Although Meyer urged Rhoades to take immediate action to prevent “irreparable harm” to the federation’s objectives in the lawsuit, Jack Katz, a chief deputy city attorney, recommended that the judge defer his decision until after the plan’s final adoption, probably early next month. Monday’s council vote, Katz emphasized, was only one of several that must be cast in order for the proposed map to take effect.

“To hear it now would be like conducting a hearing on a law that doesn’t exist, because the council still could change its mind,” Katz said.

Dismissing that argument as semantical hair-splitting, Meyer characterized the remaining legislative steps as “more a matter of form than content,” adding: “Once they’ve made a decision, it’s very unlikely that they’d change it.”

If Rhoades agrees Friday to hear the matter, the Chicano Federation will argue that Monday’s council action illegally undermines minority voting strength, as well as violates the terms of last year’s settlement agreement between the city and the Chicano Federation. Under that settlement, the city agreed to put a proposal to expand the council from eight to 10 seats on the ballot--a measure that voters rejected last month--and to use the citizens’ committee’s advice in redrawing district lines.

“By settling, the city relinquished the right to go about redistricting in a business-as-usual manner with a lot of behind-the-door deals,” said attorney Michael Aguirre, who filed the original lawsuit and is Meyer’s law partner. “But that’s exactly what the council has done. They’ve violated the spirit of the agreement by just tossing aside what the committee came up with.”

In court, Meyer pressed that argument further by contending that the council also violated the letter of the written agreement by not providing, as required, sufficient advance notice of the map approved Monday to the lawsuit’s plaintiffs.

“This map just came out of the blue,” she complained.

However, Katz, reiterating that Monday’s vote was not definitive, argued that there will be ample opportunity for public comment on the plan before its final adoption.

“I don’t think anyone doubts we’ll be hearing a lot more about this before it’s over,” Katz said.