County to Get New State Senate Seat : Reapportionment: Mostly Republican North County would make up half of new district.

SACRAMENTO — Predominantly Republican North San Diego County would make up half of a new state Senate seat to be carved out along the high-growth Interstate 15 corridor, according to a bipartisan reapportionment plan made public Wednesday.

The preliminary remapping plan for the Legislature’s upper house also creates a new minority “influenced” district along the Mexican border by combining heavily Latino neighborhoods in Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh’s South Bay district with new political turf in Imperial and Riverside counties.

Overall, however, the reapportionment plan provides very few changes of major political import for San Diego County or its senators, most of whom would face virtually certain reelection under the new lines. What extra clout the county gains as part of the new I-15 district is offset by the fact that Deddeh’s seat is expanded into the desert, say those involved in the redistricting.

“I would say that . . . it’s kind of a wash,” said Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside).

Yet Wednesday’s proposal also provided an ironic twist for Sen. Lucy Killea, who angered her partisan colleagues two weeks ago by saying she wanted to defect from the Democratic Party and run for reelection next year as an independent.

Not only had party leaders kept many seemingly hostile Republican voters in her reconfigured district, its boundaries on paper coincidentally looked very much like Dumbo the Elephant. The Republican Party mascot is an elephant.

“Isn’t it darling?” Killea quipped wryly. “It (could be) a good Christmas toy.”

The bipartisan Senate plan released Wednesday is the first glimpse of how population shifts and back-room power grabs will play out in the once-in-a-decade exercise of redrawing political boundaries in Sacramento. Still to be announced by state lawmakers are new maps for the Assembly, Congress and the State Board of Equalization.

In unveiling their plan, Senate leaders such as President Pro Tempore David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Republican leader Ken Maddy of Fresno stressed that the new district boundaries--each covering about 744,000 residents--were preliminary and subject to further public discussion and potential lawsuits.

But they said their guiding concerns were following the population trends and the mandates of the federal Voting Rights Act, which requires reapportionment schemes to maintain or strengthen minority voting power.

Both of those forces caused changes in the landscape of the San Diego Senate delegation, which must accommodate more than 170,000 new residents and a growing minority community in the South Bay.

Along the burgeoning I-15 corridor, Senate leaders agreed to form a new district that takes in such communities as Fallbrook, Julian, Warner Springs, Poway and Lemon Grove. The 33rd District replaces a Los Angeles-northern Orange County district that is being disbanded because of loss of population.

The district is currently represented by Democrat Cecil Green of Norwalk, but political insiders already say its likely inhabitant will be Assemblyman David G. Kelley (R-Hemet).

Assemblywoman Tricia Hunter (R-Bonita) said Wednesday she has no interest in running for the so-called I-15 or “desert” Senate seat, which would be considered a safe Republican enclave with a 52% party registration among voters.

While Craven and others said the new seat would generally increase San Diego’s clout in the upper house, it is offset by plans for a new minority seat in Deddeh’s 40th District along the Mexican border.

The new Deddeh seat is one of 18 minority districts created by the new reapportionment plan, mostly in Los Angeles or in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Maddy said the changes in San Diego were inspired by requests from Latinos and other minority groups in Imperial County, who were anxious to increase their voting clout by combining with similar precincts in the South Bay.

The result is expanded, new territory for Deddeh, whose current district rests within San Diego County.

He will keep familiar terrain in heavily Latino San Diego, National City, Chula Vista and Imperial Beach. In addition, he would pick up Jacumba, all of Imperial County, Indio and portions of Coachella Valley in Riverside County.

Those new lines would give Iraqi-born Deddeh a district that is only 29% white, as well as dramatically increase the number of Latinos from 19% to 48%, according to the Senate’s statistics. Maddy said the demographics make the new 40th district a “minority influenced” seat.

But the numbers are not expected to hurt Deddeh politically, especially since Democratic voter registration would increase from 51% to more than 54% under the plan.

Other changes proposed by the Senate plan include:

* Putting Camp Pendleton into San Diego County for the first time. Traditionally, the Marine base has been attached to Orange County.

It would be added to Craven’s 38th District seat, which currently stretches from Mission Bay to Oceanside and reaches inland to Escondido and Rancho Bernardo. Craven would lose Rancho Penasquitos and Mira Mesa.

* Keeping Killea’s heavily Republican district about the same. Currently, registration favors Republicans to Democrats by nearly 50% to 37%.

The new map would keep Republican registration at 47% and adds University City and Clairemont to her mid-San Diego district, which would retain Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Coronado, El Cajon, Santee and La Mesa. Killea would lose more rural areas such as Lakeside, Jamul, Ramona, Jacumba and Poway.

Killea and her staff said the new district was tantamount to political revenge for her Senate floor speech denouncing partisan reapportionment plans and announcing her defection from the Democratic Party. But aides stressed that the former San Diego City Council member is used to representing Republican districts.

Asked if the Killea district was a pay back, Craven--who helped draft the plans--said: “Lucy’s pretty much an independent now and she’s on her own. She’s picked up a district with quite a few Republicans in it, but she’s used to that.”

Roberti, who has blasted Killea as a hypocrite, said Wednesday it was pure coincidence that her new district boundaries bore an amazing resemblance to Dumbo the Elephant. Breaking into laughter when he looked at the map, the Senate leader said:

“I had nothing to do with Dumbo the Elephant. . . . Trust me!”

Proposed 33rd Senate District

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Retains: New district

Adds: Poway, Lemon Grove, Blythe, Temecula, Palm Springs

POPULATION: 743,808

REGISTERED VOTERS

1990: 375,736

1984: 294,040

REGISTRATION, 1990

Democratic: 35.6%

Republican: 52.5%

Decline to State: 9.8%

ETHNICITY, 1990

Asian-Pacific Islander: 3.22%

Black: 2.86%

Latino: 15.89%

Non-Latino White: 77.01%

Proposed 38th Senate District

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

SENATE DISTRICT 38 (William Craven)

Retains: Basic existing district

Adds: Camp Pendleton

Loses: Rancho Penasquitos, Mira Mesa

POPULATION: 744,010

REGISTERED VOTERS

1990: 367,441

1984: 397,350

REGISTRATION

1990 Current 1984 Democratic 31.6% 32.60% 35.8% Republican 53.9% 52.58% 48.7% Decline to State 12.1% 12.44% 12.9%

ETHNICITY, 1990

Asian-Pacific Islander: 4.53%

Black: 3.31%

Latino: 17.11%

Non-Latino White: 74.45%

Proposed 39th Senate District

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

SENATE DISTRICT 39 (Lucy Killea)

Retains:Ocean Beach, Point Loma, Coronado, El Cajon, Santee, La Mesa, parts of San Diego

Adds: University City, Claremont

Loses: Lakeside, Jamul, Ramona, Jacumba, Poway

POPULATION: 738,551

REGISTERED VOTERS

1990: 403,755

1984: 375,987

REGISTRATION

1990 Current 1984 Democratic 38.7% 36.90% 39.4% Republican 47.3% 49.67% 46.9% Decline to State 11.5% 10.91% 11.2%

ETHNICITY, 1990

Asian-Pacific Islander: 7.61%

Black: 4.16%

Latino: 11.77%

Non-Latino White: 75.77%

Proposed 40th Senate District

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

SENATE DISTRICT 40 (Wadie Deddeh)

Retains: National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, and parts of San Diego

Adds: Imperial County, Coachella/Salton Sea area of Riverside, southern portion of San Diego County: Jacuma, Potrero

Loses: Lemon Grove, Spring Valley, Harbor Island, parts of San Diego

POPULATION: 746,564

REGISTERED VOTERS

1990: 246,848

1984: 277,132

REGISTRATION

1990 Current 1984 Democratic 54.2% 50.82% 54.5% Republican 33.7% 36.32% 31.8% Decline to State 9.7% 10.28% 10.9%

ETHNICITY, 1990

Asian-Pacific Islander: 10.57%

Black: 10.99%

Latino: 48.28%

Non-Latino White: 29.28%