Worst-Case Example of Political Shenanigans : Council Members Are More Interested in Protecting Empires Than Doing Right Thing

The San Diego City Council’s latest exercise in political chicanery was on display last week, and, to no one’s surprise, its machinations on reapportionment produced no shortage of maneuvering. It took less than 24 hours for the Chicano Federation to take the entire matter back before U.S. District Judge John Rhoades. That’s probably where this mess belongs.

The redistricting battle has been brewing for some time in City Hall offices, where council members’ number-crunchers have been plotting strategy to gain maximum political advantage from the required rebalancing of populations in the eight districts. No surprise there; that’s how the system works, sort of.

Simultaneously, an advisory redistricting panel appointed by the council had been holding public hearings to redraw district lines.

Its map wasn’t free of political taint, either, offering significant advantages to some of the council’s conservative Republicans. But it was based on months of public testimony and debate.

On Monday, the council’s liberal, pro-environment “Gang of Five,” which controls city policy on many issues by the narrow margin of a single vote, produced a map that only its bloc members had seen before. Then it tentatively adopted the boundaries by a 5-4 vote.

It appears that the decision violates a provision of the 1988 legal settlement of the Chicano Federation’s voting rights suit against the city. In that document, Rhoades ordered the council to allow minority community representatives a meaningful role in shaping the map.

By Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Harry McCue had barred the council from formally adopting the map, a decision that was the best course of action under these circumstances.

The majority’s sin pales before the unparalleled political cowardice of Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt, who voted for new boundaries that remove Scripps Ranch from her 5th District. Bernhardt won an upset victory over incumbent “bulldozer” Ed Struiksma last November with the zealous volunteer aid of Scripps Ranch environmentalists, who believed the promises that she would protect Miramar Lake and the I-15 corridor from development.

Those problems apparently have proven more intractable than Bernhardt foresaw. With another major headache--the reopening of Pomerado Road through Scripps Ranch--on the horizon, Bernhardt simply fled the district.

Who takes over as Scripps Ranch’s representative? Bruce Henderson, the reigning pro-growth councilman. Henderson, by the way, was the victim of a naked gerrymander designed to make him more vulnerable to defeat in 1991.

At the behest of environmental activists, the burgeoning I-15 corridor was Balkanized into three council districts so that the council could not dump the city’s growth on one council member. That may have been a clever growth-control tactic, but the fact remains that, in testimony before the advisory panel, many I-15 residents asked to be lumped together in one district.

The main issue facing Rhoades, however, is whether the council obeyed federal guidelines requiring it to augment the voting power of Latinos and other minorities. The adopted plan contains an 8th District that is 51% Latino, compared with the 52.2% on the advisory commission map.

That is a small difference. But Chicano Federation lawyers make a compelling argument that the ruling bloc, by excluding some fast-growing Latino districts in favor of the heavily white neighborhood where incumbent Bob Filner conveniently bought a house during the redistricting process, the council demonstrated its intent to curb minority voting power.

Rhoades will have to sort that one out. We don’t know if the reapportionment is legal. We do know that, so far, the process has been a crime.