Court Is Asked to Settle Redistricting Skirmish

Saying that judicial intervention is necessary to ensure that San Diego’s redistricting is fair, opponents of a plan tentatively approved by the City Council asked a federal appeals court Friday to impose an alternative proposal.

In briefs filed with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, attorneys for the Chicano Federation asked that the city be forced to accept a redistricting map prepared by a council-appointed citizens’ advisory committee.

If the appeals court is unwilling to implement the proposal, it should at least direct the U.S. District Court here to proceed with a hearing on how the council-passed plan--which Latino activists argue illegally dilutes minority voting strength--was developed, the attorneys added.

But attorneys for the city and individual council members, reiterating arguments offered during earlier rounds of legal skirmishing in the case, said Friday that such action would be premature and would undermine U.S. District Judge John Rhoades’ persistent efforts to find a political, rather than legal, solution to the redistricting morass.

“Not only is it contrary to the spirit of Judge Rhoades’ (efforts), but it’s contrary to the efforts that all parties involved are making toward a compromise,” said attorney Brian Barnhorst, who represents council members Bob Filner, John Hartley and Linda Bernhardt. “You can’t compromise when you’re sitting on opposite sides of a courtroom.”

The latest legal chapter in the redistricting battle, which has careened between City Hall and federal court for the past month, unfolded hours after Hartley called for a compromise to settle the dispute.

Although he offered few specifics, Hartley, who proposed the controversial redistricting plan passed earlier this month, used a City Hall news conference to call on his colleagues and all parties in the case to “put aside the bickering” to fashion a mutually agreeable solution.

“I’m open to any ideas, any proposals, as I think we all should be,” Hartley said. “In a way, we’re back to a blank slate.”

Friday’s legal maneuver, however, is intended to narrow the focus to the advisory board’s existing plan, rather than to allow the council to fashion new maps or even to craft significant amendments.

The 22-page brief filed by Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre was prompted by Rhoades’ decision this week to delay until next month a decision on whether council members should be compelled to provide sworn testimony in the case--in particular, about the origins of the redistricting plan that was approved in concept by a 5-4 vote on July 9.

At a hearing Tuesday, Rhoades, as he has at several earlier stages, resisted Aguirre’s efforts to proceed immediately with sworn interrogations of council members about Hartley’s redistricting plan. Rhoades’ rationale for that ruling--that he would prefer to see the new configuration of council districts decided at City Hall rather than in a courtroom--has been his guiding tenet throughout the protracted debate.

“I believe the parties’ efforts could be better expended attempting to reach an agreement on what is basically a political question,” Rhoades said.

Aguirre, however, argues that Rhoades’ postponement of a decision on possible council depositions jeopardizes the chances of having a redistricting plan in place by an Oct. 1 deadline and could limit the Chicano Federation’s long-term legal options.

The approach of the 1991 council elections, Aguirre contends, could become a practical, if not legal, barrier “to having this litigation stretch into next year.” As a result, Rhoades’ decision denied minority voters opposed to Hartley’s plan “their timely day in court,” Aguirre said in his brief.

With the next hearing in the case scheduled for Aug. 24 in Rhoades’ courtroom, Aguirre expressed hope Friday that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear his new motion in about a week to allow time for possible depositions.

Aguirre took a dim view of Hartley’s call Friday for a “new spirit of compromise,” a proposal that was long on generalities but short on specifics. Hartley did say, however, that, he might be willing to raise the 8th District’s Latino percentage back to the advisory board’s figure as part of any such compromise.

“The (advisory board’s) plan already represents a compromise by us, one that we don’t intend to see diluted further by the council,” Aguirre said. “At some point, compromise turns into concession, and that’s what they’re asking us to do now. That’s what we need a court to stop from happening.”