City Moves a Step Closer to Possible Trial in Redistricting Battle : Politics: A federal judge’s action was hailed by a Latino group that hopes to overturn a redistricting plan approved in concept by City Council.

Moving a step closer to a possible trial over San Diego’s redistricting, a federal judge Monday indicated that a trial date could be set by late next month if the City Council has not resolved the bitter debate by then.

In his two-page order, U.S. District Judge John Rhoades said that, when he decides at an Aug. 24 hearing whether City Council members should be compelled to testify about a tentatively approved redistricting map, he also could take several additional actions--among them, the scheduling of a trial date on opponents’ claims that the plan is illegal.

As with so much else in the case, the two sides in the expanding political-legal dispute offered widely differing interpretations of the significance of Rhoades’ order.

Attorneys for the Chicano Federation of San Diego County, who hope to overturn the redistricting plan approved in concept by the council earlier this month, hailed Rhoades’ decision as a crucial development that increases pressure on the council to seriously consider an alternative map that the Latino group argues better protects minority voting rights.

But city attorneys characterized the judge’s order as a routine procedural matter that simply underlines previously known details about possible judicial intervention in the event that an acceptable political solution is not found.

“I’m not sure it tells us anything we didn’t know before,” said Assistant City Atty. Curtis Fitzpatrick. “To the extent (Rhoades) suggests that depositions could be taken for the purpose of possibly going to trial--well, what other purpose would there be?”

Regardless of the interpretation, several other potential legal and political developments could render Rhoades’ order moot. If, for example, the council passed a redistricting proposal acceptable to the Chicano Federation by Aug. 24, that hearing could be little more than a legal formality at which Rhoades would give the plan his imprimatur.

In addition, Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre last week asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to impose the alternative redistricting map, prepared by a council-appointed citizens’ advisory committee, on the city. Though a hearing on that request has not yet been set, it, too, could alter the timetable and specifics outlined in Rhoades’ Monday order.

Under an agreement that settled the first phase of the Chicano Federation’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city’s electoral system, the council faces an Oct. 1 deadline for having a redistricting plan in place. Because of the various steps involved in the formal adoption of any city ordinance, the council would have to decide the matter by mid-August in order to meet that deadline.

If the redistricting question were still unresolved by Aug. 24, Rhoades’ decision on the possible depositions by council members could set other potential legal maneuvers--including the scheduling of a trial date--in motion.

To date, Rhoades has resisted the Chicano Federation attorneys’ request that council members be forced to provide sworn testimony in the case--in particular, about the origins of the redistricting plan proposed by Councilman John Hartley, which was passed by a 5-4 vote on July 9.

Though Rhoades has repeatedly said he would prefer to see the new configuration of council districts decided at City Hall rather than in a courtroom, Aguirre viewed Monday’s order as evidence that the judge is “losing patience” with the council.

“This is an extremely positive development that moves in the direction we’d hoped,” Aguirre said. “What it says is that, if the council doesn’t do the right thing in the next three weeks, it may be staring at a trial date.”

Although that possibility has loomed from the case’s inception, Rhoades’ order emphasizes the potential legal consequences if the city’s elected officials fail to settle the issue, Aguirre added.

“If Mr. Aguirre sees it that way, I’m not totally surprised, because we often disagree,” City Atty. Fitzpatrick responded. “The order simply memorializes what we heard at the last hearing. I don’t see it as very significant.”

The council is scheduled to resume its redistricting debate today, but with Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, who voted for Hartley’s plan, in Europe on vacation, there appears to be little chance of the council breaking the 4-4 deadlock that developed during a hearing held in her absence last week.

Among the many differences in the two redistricting plans before the council, arguably the major distinction is that Hartley’s proposal would reduce the Latino population in the 8th District from the advisory board’s proposed 52.2% to 51%. According to Chicano Federation attorneys, that dilution of Latino voting clout, combined with the manner in which the council rejected the advisory board’s plan in favor of Hartley’s proposal, violates the earlier legal settlement in the group’s voting-rights lawsuit.