County District Remap Facing Latino Lawsuit : Redistricting: Chicano Federation wants stronger electoral power and is threatening a suit similar to its successful one that helped reshape San Diego City Council districts.

Accusing Supervisor Leon Williams and county staffers of “racial gerrymandering,” a Chicano Federation official Wednesday promised to file a federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit unless the Board of Supervisors strengthens Latino electoral power in its upcoming reapportionment.

Jess Haro, a member of the Chicano Federation’s board of directors, issued his threat as the supervisors began consideration of two redistricting maps prepared by Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey’s office and eight others submitted by individuals and groups seeking to influence the decennial reapportionment.

“We are hereby notifying (the supervisors) that there is about to occur a violation of the Voting Rights Act,” Haro declared in public testimony at a board hearing Wednesday morning. Declaring both maps generated by county staffers unacceptable, Haro threatened to seek postponement of next June’s supervisors election as part of the lawsuit.

The Chicano Federation successfully sued the San Diego City Council in 1988 in an attempt to create the city’s district-only election system, an electoral process that was approved in a ballot initiative later that year. This spring, a second segment of the Chicano Federation’s lawsuit against the city concluded with a settlement that created a South Bay council district that is 61.5% Latino.

One of the county-generated maps, known as Plan B, would raise the Latino percentage of the population in Supervisor Brian Bilbray’s South Bay 1st District from its current 35.3% to 43.2%. But to accomplish that, it would draw Latinos from Williams’ 4th District, eliminating non-whites’ collective majority status in that district.

Under county Plan A, Latinos would make up 40% of the 1st District. While that proportion is smaller than Plan B, the configuration would allow Latinos, blacks and Asians to collectively remain the majority in both Districts 1 and 4.

Hispanics now account for about 20.4% of the county population. The group includes Latinos and others of Spanish origin. Hispanics are by far the largest minority group.

Haro, however, dismissed both plans as insufficient. “In neither district do we have a sufficient number to determine the outcome of an election,” said Haro, noting that no Latino has ever served on the Board of Supervisors. “There’s a number of alternatives.”

Chicano Federation attorney Michael Aguirre said that solutions include drawing a new district that would be “75% to 80%” Latino, black and Asian; increasing the number of districts to give minorities a higher proportion of the population in at least one district; or maximizing the Latino population in Bilbray’s district.

The Chicano Federation has submitted a map that would draw a 1st District with a 47.7% Latino population by excluding predominantly white, bayfront areas such as Coronado and Imperial Beach, where Bilbray resides. Other groups have submitted maps showing a slightly smaller Latino contingent.

But June Komar, the deputy chief administrative officer who is overseeing the county’s redistricting effort, said that the total population of the district in the Chicano Federation map is too small to meet requirements that the population of each district be within 10% of the average of about 500,000 people.

Haro and Aguirre accused Williams of working behind the scenes and making public statements designed to divide blacks and Latinos between the 1st and 4th Districts, in order to keep his district safe for his own reelection.

Haro criticized Williams for saying that a Latino could be elected to the board with the current population of District 1 and noting that he has been elected in a district where only 15.4% of the electorate is black.

Haro repeated his contention that county staffers will never draw Bilbray or Williams out of their districts, moves that would be required to maximize Latino voting power.

Williams denied the charges. “I have not participated in any kind of gerrymander, either on the City Council or here,” he said.

“It’s just a statement of fact that I have not had a majority black (population) in any district I’ve been elected to,” he said.

Even with a larger share of the population, Latinos face significant challenges electing a supervisor because sizable portions of the population are not citizens, are too young to vote and do not register, according to Leo Estrada, a UCLA demographer with wide experience in Latino voting rights cases, including the San Diego City Council one.

Nationwide, every 100 Latinos in a political jurisdiction yields only four voters on election day, Estrada said.

Minority representation is not the only problem the supervisors will tackle as they complete the reapportionment before a November deadline. Supervisor John MacDonald’s North County District 5 population must be trimmed by nearly 100,000 people, leaving him the unpalatable choice of jettisoning a major city.

Plan A would move the entire city of Escondido and the San Dieguito unincorporated area into Supervisor Susan Golding’s 3rd District, while adding Del Mar and Solana Beach to MacDonald’s district.

The city of Poway also would be moved to the 3rd District, while the city of San Diego communities of San Carlos, Tierrasanta and Rolando would be moved to District 2.

Plan B would drop the cities of Carlsbad and Encinitas into the 3rd District to trim population, but would leave Escondido, San Marcos, Vista and Oceanside in the 5th District.

The supervisors have pledged to avoid dividing cities except for the city of San Diego, and to keep communities with common interests together if possible. To that end, leaders of bayfront cities asked the supervisors to keep them together within Bilbray’s district. Other citizens from around the county asked for similar treatment.

Black speakers asked the board not to ignore their needs for voting power as part of the effort to maximize Latino strength. Blacks, however, make up just 6% of the county population.

According to the census, county population has grown 34%, from 1.8 million to almost 2.5 million in the past decade. Plan A would reapportion the county into five districts with populations ranging from 474,530 in District 1 to 521,804 in District 3. Plan B populations would range from 488,808 in the 5th District to 510,576 in the 3rd District.

Supervisors are scheduled to consider the maps again next week.