San Diego Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric, acting as a private citizen, filed suit in Superior Court today declaring the Redistricting Commission was not properly created. The suit called for disbandment of the city council, with a demand to select an entirely new commission.
“As a resident and taxpayer in San Diego, I’ve filed a petition to the Superior Court asking for an injunction to halt the San Diego Redistricting Commission, which has been hijacked by hyper-partisan political operatives,” Krvaric said in a statement.
San Diego’s Redistricting Commission is responsible for redrawing the city council boundaries to accommodate for population shift as well as adding a ninth council seat. The LGBT Redistricting Task Force has made several presentations to the commission, in the hopes to maintain an LGBT-friendly district (currently District 3, which has elected three consecutive gay or lesbian city councilmembers).
Krvaric’s lawsuit claims the city did not follow established rules and regulations, and that the commission was not “lawfully constituted.” The two main grievances of the suit focus on the application and appointment processes.
“San Diegans passed Prop. C back in 1992 to remove, rightfully, redistricting decisions from politicians and commissioners were required to have ‘a demonstrated capacity to serve with impartiality in a non-partisan role’,” Krvaric said. He told LGBT Weekly today the process was flawed from the beginning, that it provided, “no screening whatsoever; no questions whatsoever about what political party you belong to, what political activities you have engaged in, and so forth.”
“The result is we have people on there that are highly political,” he continued. “They are either right or left. They have no business being on the commission.”
The suit reads, “In October, a panel of retired judges appointed three Democrats, two Republicans, and two independents to the commission. Unfortunately, three of the commissioners bring partisan interests to the commission in what appears to be a power grab by the labor movement and other left-of-center causes.”
Those three are Carlos Marquez, vice chairman of the commission, and commissioners Theresa Quiroz and David Potter, according to the suit.
“Marquez is an outspoken Democratic activist,” the suit reads, and in another section, “Theresa Quiroz and David Potter are registered as decline-to-state voters, but function as highly partisan Democrats.”
The suit also calls into question the two judges that appointed the commissioners. The San Diego City Charter states that the commissioners “shall be appointed by a panel of three retired Superior Court Judges,” but the Redistricting Commission was appointed by only two judges, William Howatt and Jim Milliken. The third judge, Patricia Cowett, was not present when the appointments were made.
“I am asking the court to restore the public’s trust in its redistricting commission by starting the process over and properly screening all the applicants to make sure the intent of the charter and will of the voters is respected,” Krvaric said.
Krvaric said a judge has already been appointed to the suit. The case should be heard by the end of this week or start of next week, he said.
“Krvaric has aimed much of his venom at Wong and Commissioners Theresa Quiroz and Carlos Marquez—he’s even in recent weeks changed his Twitter avatar to a photo of Wong and Marquez together. (Frankly, Spin feels like pulling out the old picture of Krvaric posing with a porn star from his hacker days, but that’d be tacky.) ” John Lamb, SDCityBeat