Dispute Over City Council Redistricting Remains in a Standoff : Politics: A federal magistrate’s effort to promote a compromise between 2 camps prompts little movement.

A federal magistrate continued Wednesday to prod the two sides in San Diego’s redistricting battle toward a possible compromise, while plans for further hearings on the volatile subject advanced on other fronts.

Repeating what has become a familiar story line, there were developments--though little substantive progress--both in federal court and at City Hall Wednesday concerning the protracted political-legal dispute over the plan to redraw council district boundaries.

At a 90-minute closed session in his chambers, U.S. Magistrate Harry McCue met with eight lawyers involved in the case in an attempt to focus their clients’ debate and to search for common ground to avoid a costly, lengthy legal showdown.

But, with the two sides being badly divided on several crucial points--notably, whether the City Council has violated a previous legal agreement in its handling of the redistricting decision--at least one city attorney characterized McCue’s persistent efforts as well-intentioned but fruitless.

“He tried to find a common thread running through everyone’s thinking, but there just isn’t one,” said Jack Katz, a senior chief deputy city attorney. “When our position is that there hasn’t been a breach of the settlement but the other side says there has been, it’s difficult to find any common ground.”

Hoping to narrow the expanding debate, McCue instructed attorneys for the Chicano Federation of San Diego County, who vehemently oppose a redistricting plan tentatively approved by the council last month, to prepare a written summary of what they see as the central legal questions in the dispute.

Though McCue set no specific dates for future hearings, that synopsis, expected to be prepared within several days, presumably will set the stage for additional negotiations in a case that has careened between City Hall and courtrooms for the past month.

As he has from the start, Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre reiterated after Wednesday’s meeting that the essential legal question is whether the redistricting plan approved in concept by a 5-4 council vote significantly dilutes minority voting rights from that of an alternative map proposed by a council-appointed citizens’ advisory board.

Proposed by Councilman John Hartley, the plan tentatively passed by the council would reduce the Latino population in the 8th District from the advisory board’s proposed 52.2% to 51%--a numerically minor but politically significant reduction, according to Aguirre.

In changing the advisory panel’s plan, Hartley’s proposal would eliminate nearly 2,000 blacks and 600 Latinos from the 8th District while adding roughly 2,500 white voters, Aguirre said. Terming that change “outcome determinative,” Aguirre argues that the revised composition of the 8th District would significantly lessen the chances of a Latino candidate winning there--particularly given Latino voters’ traditionally lower turnout.

However, 8th District Councilman Bob Filner and other supporters of Hartley’s map contend that the impact of that numerical reduction would be offset in part by the plan’s retention of Balboa Park and downtown in the district--areas that would be removed under the advisory board’s proposal. Hartley’s plan, they argue, not only maintains a Latino-majority district, but also would make the district more politically potent, thereby maximizing Latino clout.

During Wednesday’s discussion, Aguirre repeated his rejection of that argument.

“They’re telling us they’re going to give us more by giving us less,” Aguirre said. “But the price tag for more political clout . . . is a change that makes it less likely for Latino voters’ choice to be elected. Basically, we just don’t trust them anymore. We’d rather take our chances with the advisory board map.”

The advisory board was an outgrowth of the Chicano Federation’s 1988 lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the city’s electoral system. Under an agreement that settled the first phase of that suit, the council agreed to establish an advisory board to assist it with its decennial redistricting task.

By rejecting the advisory board’s map in favor of Hartley’s plan, which was publicized only hours before its approval, the council violated both the spirit and the letter of the settlement agreement, Aguirre contends. As a result, Aguirre has asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to impose the advisory board’s map on the city, arguing that doing so is necessary to protect minorities’ voting rights.

Describing that interpretation as premature at best, city attorneys--as well as private lawyers who have been hired by some individual council members--emphasize that the council has not yet taken definitive action on redistricting. Until a plan is formally approved, its impact on Latinos’ voting rights and adherence to--or violation of--last year’s settlement agreement cannot be determined, they contend.

Amid the continued, largely repetitive legal maneuvering, city officials also announced Wednesday that the advisory board will be reconvened next Monday night to give it an opportunity to review the proposed changes to its redistricting plan. The scheduling of that hearing came in response to a council vote Tuesday asking the panel, which officially completed its work in June when it forwarded its proposal to the council, to reassemble once more to comment on proposed amendments to Hartley’s plan and its own map.

Not surprisingly for a case in which legalities often blur political realities, next Monday’s planned meeting is seen as both politically and legally problematical by at least some board members--creating the prospect of a partial boycott.

With the city attorney’s office defending the council majority--and, by extension, the Hartley plan--several board members question whether city attorneys can continue to advise the board. Given the case’s litigious history, board members said Wednesday they would be reluctant to get reinvolved until that matter is clarified.

Some board members also; said they are skeptical about why they have been asked to give their advice again in light of the council’s rejection of their original proposal.

“What I wonder is whether this is an attempt to use the board to try to legitimize the Hartley plan,” said board member Dan Greenblat. “Under the circumstances, you’d have to be a little suspicious.”