Plan to Cut Mayor’s Role in Redistricting Moves Toward Ballot : City Hall: Council gives tentative approval to charter change that would prevent a veto of redrawn boundaries.

With Mayor Tom Bradley six months from retirement, the Los Angeles City Council moved ahead Friday with a proposal that could remove his successor from one of the city’s most definitive political events--redistricting.

The council took the first step toward placing two measures on the April ballot that would prevent future mayors from vetoing redistricting plans--the maps that the council draws once a decade to mark council and school board boundaries.

If approved next week, and by voters in April, the City Charter changes would further whittle away mayoral powers that were diminished last year by passage of Proposition 5. That measure permits the City Council to review decisions by commissions that had been answerable almost solely to the mayor.

The once-a-decade redrawing of political boundaries has been a focal point for political and ethnic power struggles in Los Angeles. Bradley and some of his would-be replacements made it clear Friday that they will resist attempts to remove the mayor’s office from the contentious redistricting discussions.

“It’s an essential part of the checks and balances that are a part of city government,” Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani said of the mayor’s power to veto redistricting maps. “It allows the mayor to assure that the rights of minorities are protected, if the council does not.”

Officials at City Hall predicted a mayoral veto of any attempt to take the mayor out of the redistricting loop. Fabiani declined to say how the mayor might react to the council’s action.

Attempts to remove the mayor from the redistricting debate began in 1986, when Bradley vetoed a controversial plan that would have placed councilmen Michael Woo and John Ferraro in the same district. The plan would have led to the political demise of one of the incumbents in order to create a new district with a majority of Latino voters.

Bradley called the plan unfair because it threatened to remove from office the council’s first and only Asian-American member, Woo.

Outraged that the mayor had upended the hard-fought agreement on their boundaries, several council members proposed eliminating the mayor from redistricting debates. The proposal was abandoned, however, when Councilman Howard Finn died--allowing the council to create a Latino district without threatening Woo or any incumbent.

Many council members still chafe at the prospect of the mayor meddling in the drawing of their districts.

“It’s really council business,” said Councilman Hal Bernson. “He has the whole city to represent and this is really our concern.”

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who proposed the diminution of mayoral power, said: “We hold hearings all over the city and get comments from people and make a decision. Then the mayor can just come in and kill it.”

The council voted 8 to 4 to place a charter amendment on the ballot that would prevent the mayor from vetoing council redistricting. It voted 9 to 3 for a similar proposal related to boundaries for the Los Angeles Unified School District board.

Both measures would prevent the mayor’s involvement by making a technical change in the City Charter--accomplishing the redrawing of political maps through resolutions, which the mayor cannot veto, instead of through ordinances, which he can overrule.

Both proposals have several hurdles to clear before they are placed on the ballot.

Interestingly, Councilmen Nate Holden and Joel Wachs, both mayoral hopefuls who say they oppose the measures, were recorded Friday as voting for the proposals.

Both said they will reverse their inadvertent votes when the proposals return next week for final approval. That could leave the measures without the minimum eight votes required to put them on the ballot.

“The mayor has always said the office of mayor is too weak anyway,” Holden said. “And now that the mayor is leaving, the council is doing a power grab and trying to take whatever power it can.

“You’ll have 15 mayors trying to do whatever they can. And that won’t serve the interest of the whole city.”

Wachs said the mayor has been allowed to veto redistricting plans for good reason.

“Basically we have a system of checks and balances and you just don’t take that away,” he said. “I have always preferred that an independent commission do redistricting, but at least (a mayoral veto) allows some review.”

Even if the measures are approved by the council, Bradley’s veto is expected.