City Formally OKs Remap; Legal Tangle Grows : Elections: Councilman Bruce Henderson, on the losing side in the redistricting controversy, promises to add his own lawsuit to the effort to overturn the plan.

With a legal showdown approaching, the San Diego City Council on Monday ended the protracted legislative debate over redistricting by formally reaffirming its support for a plan passed earlier this month.

But, although the political chapter in the bitter dispute was closed, at least temporarily, its legal side grew messier as one dissenting councilman announced plans to file a state court lawsuit that will seek to overturn the plan, as does an existing federal suit to be heard Friday.

Although the map approved Monday creates the city’s first Latino-majority district, opponents argue that it weakens minority voting rights and does too little to enhance Latinos’ political clout. If they can convince a federal judge that the council-passed map is unconstitutional, members of the Chicano Federation of San Diego County hope to replace it with one that increases the minority population in two of the council’s eight districts.

After weeks of acrimonious, often repetitive debate over the redrawing of the council district lines, Monday’s special 25-minute meeting ended with a relative whimper, with both the council members and community leaders seemingly too tired to once again reiterate oft-heard arguments in the face of a foregone conclusion.

With the same five-member council bloc supporting the redistricting map initially approved two weeks ago, the council voted 5 to 3 for the so-called “second reading” of the plan, the final legislative step before it takes effect in one month. As they have from the outset, Council Members Ron Roberts, Bruce Henderson and Judy McCarty voted against the plan, while Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who also opposes it, was absent.

In contrast to the marathon 5 1/2-hour meeting at which 76 San Diegans spoke Aug. 13, only a handful of public speakers attended Monday’s brief hearing, largely because the solidity of the five-vote council majority made the redistricting plan’s official adoption little more than a formality.

However, that did not prevent a few final skirmishes on the council over the volatile topic, which already has badly split the body’s two opposing factions and resulted in a recall campaign being mounted against one supporter of the new map, Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt.

Asking questions clearly posed with an eye on the upcoming court proceedings, Henderson queried Councilman John Hartley, the map’s primary author, about the plan’s origins and some of its specific provisions.

Refusing to be drawn in to the discussion, Hartley waved off Henderson’s questions by dismissively remarking that it was time to “get on with the action.” Similarly, Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer, who chaired the meeting in O’Connor’s absence, characterized Henderson’s questions as “hypothetical depositions” having more to do with the pending lawsuits than with the council’s action.

Undeterred, Henderson revealed plans to expand the legal challenge facing the redistricting plan by filing a lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court charging that the map violates the city’s charter. Specifically, Henderson contends that the plan does not satisfy charter provisions requiring that districts be as geographically compact as possible and follow natural boundaries such as valleys.

The map’s supporters, however, argue that it meets those criteria at least as well as any of the major alternatives considered by a citizens advisory board established by the council to assist it with its decennial task of redrawing districts to accommodate population shifts. Indeed, the map originally recommended by the advisory panel included one district far more sprawling than any in the council’s version.

Conceding that Monday’s map “is not perfect,” Councilman Bob Filner, underlining how the political and numerical realities of redistricting often clash, said, “It’s hard to put a jigsaw puzzle together that meets every criteria that you want to meet.”

With the city already facing the Chicano Federation lawsuit, Filner complained after the meeting that Henderson’s planned suit potentially could “continue the turmoil for years,” thereby perpetuating rather than healing the divisive debate.

Insisting that is not his intent, Henderson explained that his lawsuit reflects the intense displeasure with the map in some communities that would be shifted to his 6th District if the plan takes effect.

“I wouldn’t do it if the communities weren’t upset,” Henderson said. “I have an argument that needs to be brought, and the courts are the proper forum. It doesn’t take 30 years to litigate this.”

The first climactic round in the legal battle over the plan, however, will unfold in federal court, where Chicano Federation attorneys will ask U.S. District Judge John Rhoades to overturn the council’s redistricting map on the grounds that it unconstitutionally dilutes minority voting rights.

At Friday’s hearing, Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre will also argue that the council procedurally violated a settlement agreement in the group’s 1988 lawsuit challenging the legality of the city’s electoral system.

Under that agreement, the city agreed to establish the citizens advisory board and pledged to give minority groups a meaningful voice in the redistricting debate--a promise violated, Aguirre contends, by the council’s initial adoption of Hartley’s plan only hours after it was publicized.

Hartley’s original plan would have reduced the Latino population in Filner’s 8th District from the advisory board’s 52.2% to 51%--a numerically minor but politically significant reduction, according to Aguirre. However, subsequent changes to both proposals eliminated that numerical distinction, leaving both with a 51.9% Latino population.

Introducing a new wrinkle to that critical statistical comparison, Aguirre hopes to shift the focus in federal court to voting-age population, rather than the overall population figures used in developing the council’s map.

In a decision last year involving a challenge to Chula Vista’s at-large election system, Judge Rhoades himself wrote that the “population of eligible voters appears to be the standard” that should be used to determine whether a minority group has a fair chance to elect a candidate, Aguirre noted.

With that decision as a backdrop, Aguirre argues that, if the council is serious about wanting to improve Latino candidates’ chances of winning a council seat--something no Latino here has ever done without first being appointed--then it should create an 8th District in which Latinos constitute more than 50% of the eligible voters, not simply a majority of the overall population.

To accomplish that goal, however, the overall Latino population in the 8th District presumably would have to grow to perhaps the 60% to 70% range--a target that Filner contends is unattainable given the other legal requirements.