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Saturday, September 07, 2002

By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The Allegheny County Republican Party yesterday failed to bar County Council's Democratic majority from approving a new council-district map.

Common Pleas Judge Joseph M. James refused to grant the Republicans' request for an injunction that would have blocked a vote scheduled for Tuesday's council meeting.

James scoffed at GOP attorney Thomas Hardiman's argument that changing the map now would interfere with candidates' preparations for the May 20, 2003, council district primaries.

"It's September. We're talking about a May primary," James told Hardiman. "After the governor's race [Nov. 5], people might start looking at this."

The judge also rejected the GOP request on the grounds that the Republicans are already suing council Democrats over reapportionment in U.S. District Court, where a trial is scheduled to start Sept. 17. It makes sense to keep the reapportionment conflict consolidated in one courtroom, James said.

At Tuesday's council meeting, the Democrats intend to approve a map that slightly modifies the one they approved in April. The new version, like the existing one, virtually guarantees Democratic majorities on council through the rest of the decade.

But three of the 13 districts have been modified in the new map to ensure that all of the county's voting wards remain intact. The April map divides Pittsburgh's 4th and 14th wards among two districts each.

The county's administrative code essentially prohibits dividing voting wards when drawing council districts, and the Republicans sued in federal court on that basis, among others.

Although the GOP lawsuit is based on the April map, attorneys for both parties are operating under the assumption that U.S. District Judge Robert Cindrich will start the trial on schedule, given the similarity of the two reapportionment plans.

While the division of wards will no longer be at issue, Republicans will still argue that the Democrats are illegally, albeit temporarily, disenfranchising about 70,000 voters by forcing them to wait two extra years before they can next vote in a council district election.

Both maps shift tens of thousands of voters from districts that will elect council members next year to districts that won't elect council members again until 2005.

Council President James Simms, D-Hill District, was deposed yesterday by a GOP attorney in preparation for the Sept. 17 trial.

Jeffrey Cohan can be reached at jcohan@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3573.