Judge Is Asked to Order Adoption of Alternative Redistricting : Politics: Foes of City Council’s controversial plan want the advisory panel’s boundaries implemented.

Setting the stage for yet another legal showdown over redistricting, opponents of a controversial plan tentatively approved by the San Diego City Council asked a federal judge Wednesday to order the city to adopt an alternative proposal to redraw district lines.

In their petition, to be reviewed at a court hearing today, attorneys for the Chicano Federation ask U.S. Magistrate Harry McCue to take the critical decision out of the council’s hands--and, in the process, to declare the five-member council majority in contempt of court.

While conceding that judges typically are loath to substitute judicial fiat for legislative will in such matters, Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre argued Wednesday that the council majority has “brought this upon itself” through actions that he contends violated a court order and an earlier lawsuit settlement governing the redistricting process.

Even Aguirre, however, expressed doubt that McCue would mandate such a drastic remedy at today’s hearing, saying he believes it is more likely that the magistrate would give the council “one more chance to do the right thing.” From Aguirre’s perspective, “the right thing” is approval of an alternative redistricting plan developed by a citizens advisory board that some argue better protects minority voting rights.

However, city attorneys and private lawyers for several council members dismiss Aguirre’s arguments as stemming more from his political preference for the advisory panel’s plan than from legalities. The council majority’s request this week for two special August hearings on redistricting, which prompted the Chicano Federation’s latest legal salvo, not only does not violate McCue’s earlier order but, in fact, satisfies its overriding intent, the attorneys argue.

“What initiated this was the feeling that the (redistricting) plan had not received enough public exposure,” said David Lundin, who represents, at their expense, Bob Filner, Linda Bernhardt and John Hartley--three of the five council members who supported the map passed last week. “So when the council reacts to that and creates an opportunity for more public input, Mr. Aguirre calls that contempt. With him, it’s heads I win, tails you lose. He’s rewritten ‘Catch-22.’ ”

Because of another development Wednesday, more lawyers than initially anticipated will crowd into McCue’s chambers during today’s expected closed hearing.

In a three-page letter to council members, city attorneys said that, because they are obliged to represent the position of the five-vote council majority, trying to simultaneously defend the other four members’ interests would pose a conflict of interest.

As a result, those four--Mayor Maureen O’Connor, Ron Roberts, Bruce Henderson and Judy McCarty--may retain private attorneys at public expense. As of late Wednesday, O’Connor had already arranged for free legal representation, and others were exploring their options.

The impetus for today’s court hearing is the petition filed Wednesday by Aguirre and his law partner, Patricia Meyer, asking McCue to order adoption of the advisory board’s redistricting map as the remedy for the alleged violations of various court orders in the case. Those orders include an agreement that settled the first stage of the Chicano Federation’s 1988 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city’s electoral system, and a ruling from McCue last week that established a partial timetable for the council’s debate.

In that order, McCue barred the council from proceeding this week, as planned, toward formal adoption of a redistricting plan that has drawn strong criticism from Latino activists, some community leaders and several council members since its tentative approval last week. Offered by Hartley, that plan was conceptually approved July 9 by a 5-4 vote, with Council Members Abbe Wolfsheimer and Wes Pratt joining Lundin’s three clients on the majority side.

In addition to postponing council action, McCue’s order also warns that, unless the council reverses itself and approves the advisory board’s plan, further court review of the plan is a certainty. While that does not assume that there is any legal impropriety with Hartley’s plan, it underlines the fact that the city could face a potentially lengthy, expensive court battle defending a redistricting map that the Chicano Federation would seek to have overturned as unconstitutional.

By scheduling next month’s two special meetings during the council’s planned summer recess, Aguirre and Meyer argued in their court filings, the five-member majority violated McCue’s ruling that the council “not proceed in any way regarding the redistricting” until July 23.

Despite the court orders and various other constitutional protections related to redistricting, the council majority has “conspired to draw district boundary lines to suit their own personal political interests,” Meyer and Aguirre wrote in their inch-thick filing.

“During the redistricting process, the City Council Five’s primary objective was to protect their incumbencies and that of their allies,” the petition says. “This objective, however, was inescapably linked to the continued fragmentation of the Hispanic population core”--an issue at the heart of the group’s original lawsuit.

Among other things, Hartley’s plan dilutes the Latino population of a Latino-majority 8th District from the advisory board’s proposed 52.2% to at most 51%, and perhaps lower. Its defenders, however, contend that by keeping Balboa Park and downtown in the 8th District--areas that would be removed under the advisory panel’s map--Hartley’s plan actually could enhance Latino clout by encompassing it in a more politically potent district.

Responding to Aguirre’s charges, Jack Katz, a senior deputy city attorney, argues that his complaints stem from an excessively narrow interpretation of McCue’s order blocking council action until July 23. The mere scheduling of possible hearings, Katz contends, does not violate that order--particularly in light of the fact that a decision at next Monday’s special night council meeting could make the August sessions a moot point.

“What Mr. Aguirre is doing is milking mice,” Katz said. “He’s making a big deal out of nothing.”

With Wolfsheimer to be absent from next week’s meeting because of vacation plans, most City Hall insiders predict that, if the matter even comes to a vote, it will result in a 4-4 deadlock--a scenario that assumes no members change their position.

If definitive action is not taken next week, Aguirre argues, the August sessions will simply be “political window dressing” used by the council majority to “cover up their mistakes and illegal acts” as a prelude to “readopting” the Hartley plan.

“What they’re trying to accommodate is Abbe’s vacation, not the public,” Aguirre said. “They’re about as interested in more public input as they are in seriously considering the (advisory board’s) plan. This whole thing is just a smoke screen. They’ve already decided the question. What’s the purpose in more public hearings when they’ve already made up their minds?”

The prospect of additional court intervention in the already vitriolic debate, however, is unpalatable even to the council minority that opposes Hartley’s plan.

“The idea of judicial intrusion into the legislative process is something that every red-blooded politician should make his very best effort to avoid,” Henderson said. “That’s why the (five majority members) are almost traitors to the American system of government. What they’re doing is disgraceful, because it sets up a confrontation better avoided.”

It was Pratt, though, who perhaps best capsulized the political and legal maneuverings surrounding an issue that has careened between City Hall and courtrooms for the past week and a half.

“Perhaps everyone could have dealt with this issue differently,” Pratt said in a written statement Wednesday. “But any decision other than to accept the (advisory board’s) recommendation would have resulted in the same . . . misrepresentations and accusations. Unfortunately, the inherently political nature of reapportionment generates political responses from individuals, neighborhoods, elected officials, community organizations and, yes, even the media.”