Behind the Scenes of Redistricting

The current City Hall battle over redistricting has been presented in the press as an attempt by an insensitive majority to ride roughshod over the good government recommendations of an independent, virtuous, citizens’ Redistricting Advisory Board (RAB). Let me set the record straight.

Most of the members of the RAB were good citizens, volunteering lots of time to their community. Unfortunately, the board quickly became dominated by a few professional political consultants who had a conscious agenda to pursue. In fact, the basic outline of their council district map was circulated among a few City Council offices well before the first meeting of the RAB.

As the representative of the League of Women Voters pointed out, public testimony to the RAB that conflicted with this preconceived agenda was ignored. Secret caucuses were held in back rooms. No formal minutes of the proceedings were maintained.

Out of this charade of a public process came recommendations for a new council district map--recommendations that soon achieved the status of the Ten Commandments handed down to Moses. The media has focused on only one aspect of the RAB’s recommendations: the creation of a majority Latino district. That point is not at issue. Every member of the City Council supports that recommendation.

What the media did not report are other--highly objectionable--features of the recommendations.

It was surprising that a committee that claimed to be empowering the Latino community deliberately weakened the political clout of that Latino district by removing the politically and economically critical areas of downtown and Balboa Park from its boundaries.

The RAB’s recommendations protected and enhanced the political futures of the most anti-environment and anti-neighborhood members of the City Council--and created difficult districts for the most progressive council members.

Its recommendations divided many neighborhoods into different council districts, insulated most districts from environmental concerns, segregated the city into “have” and “have not” districts, and dumped all the problems of our city’s growth into just two council districts.

Of course, several council members decided to try to fight this blatantly political redistricting map--even if it came from an “independent” and “citizens’ ” advisory board.

We joined a coalition of neighborhood, environmental, labor, gay, Latino and other minority activists committed to drawing district lines that create a majority Latino population, unite neighborhoods, build as many districts as possible with environmental concerns, and encourage each council member to be responsive to diverse economic interests.

The redistricting map that came out of this process is the neighborhood/environment or “Hartley” map.

Which do you choose?

BOB FILNER

San Diego City Council

District 8