Judge rules Spokane City Council district map is legal, but questions whether some rules were followed

Apr. 7—Spokane's City Council district map approved last year was not illegally gerrymandered and can stand in this year's election, a judge ruled Friday.

However, Superior Court Judge Tony Hazel added that Councilman Zack Zappone appeared to have violated rules in the city charter when he presented the map that the council ultimately adopted. Though Hazel emphasized that the wording of the city charter was unclear, he said Zappone had certainly violated the spirit of the local law.

"For precedent going forward, the City Council should not be submitting maps," Hazel said. "I will make that ruling here, and if it is challenged, I would understand, but for now, going forward, that should not happen."

Hazel also noted that Zappone appeared to have been aware of the partisan implications of the map he presented. However, the evidence did not show that Zappone knowingly used "population data" to draw the map to advantage a particular political party, which is the strict criteria under state law.

Attorney Mark Lamb, who represented the plaintiffs challenging the district map that the council adopted in November, requested that the judge stay his decision pending an appeal.

"I'm not going to tie up an election," Hazel replied. "I encourage you to appeal, I think this needs to be developed in case law ... but I'm not going to exercise the court's discretion to tie up an election on this."

Zappone declined an interview Friday pending any ongoing legal challenges, noting that the case is likely to be appealed.

Legal arguments

Except for council president elections, City Council districts determine the eligibility of candidates to run for a particular seat, and the elections for those races are determined by voters living within those districts.

Every decade, Spokane redraws the boundaries of its three City Council districts to ensure each has the same number of residents. The city earlier this year tasked three volunteers, nominated by the mayor and approved by the City Council, with drawing a new map.

Those three redistricting board members — Rick Friedlander, Heather Beebe-Stevens and Jennifer Thomas — worked on maps through the summer and into the fall. Zappone and City Council President Breean Beggs served as nonvoting members.

After an extended public outreach process, the voting members of the board advanced a map drafted by Thomas, which had the fewest changes to its boundaries, to the City Council for deliberation. The council decided — for the first time in its history, Lamb stated — to throw out the board's recommendation in favor of a map drafted by Zappone.

The map selected by the City Council last year made Zappone's District 3 — in northwest Spokane and previously considered a swing district — more likely to elect liberal council members. It also made District 1, which covers northeast Spokane and is represented by conservative city lawmakers Michael Cathcart and Jonathan Bingle, less likely to elect conservative members.

There are a number of criteria for drafting the new districts, including balancing population shifts that may have occurred in the preceding 10 years.

Two criteria, in particular, made up the core of the legal arguments by both parties.

To the extent possible, districts borders should follow natural boundaries and not split up "existing communities of related and mutual interest," though the parameters and priority of this criteria have been interpreted in different ways.

Another criteria says that "population data" cannot be used to advantage or disadvantage any racial group or political party.

The legal challenge filed not long after the City Council's left-leaning majority adopted the new map claimed the districts were intentionally gerrymandered by Zappone in favor of left-leaning candidates.

Zappone has consistently stated in public that his only motivation in drafting the maps the way he did was to reunify neighborhoods, which the city argued were existing communities of shared interests. In the previous map, the Riverside, West Hills and East Central neighborhoods had been divided between two council districts.

The four plaintiffs in the case — Michael Brown, Mark Howard, and Rebecca and Colin Cook — were represented by Lamb, who has also represented noteworthy Republican figures such as former state Rep. Matt Shea, Tim Eyman and the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

In his court filings and arguments Friday to Hazel, Lamb relied heavily on a litany of subpoenaed communications, primarily from Zappone. These communications show Zappone was aware of the political implications of the map he had drawn, and worked with political allies and his taxpayer-funded legislative assistant to shape the public's perception of the map before it was approved.

"In speaking with the community, I heard over and over again how important it was to them that we keep the neighborhoods together ... " legislative assistant Jeff Gunn suggested Zappone say, before adding, "Some (nonsense) like that."

After the council had swapped the advisory board's recommended map for the one drafted by Zappone, but before its final adoption, Jim Dawson, a director for progressive political organization Fuse Washington, asked Zappone in a text "how much better are" districts 1 and 3 after redistricting.

In a reply, Zappone did not highlight the improved neighborhood unification.

"It's about +1.5% more Dem," he replied.

Lamb noted that the redistricting board had access to a tool that would have clearly shown the partisan benefit to changes in the district boundary.

"If this isn't partisan redistricting that is prohibited by state law, there is no set of facts ever, in any case, that would establish partisan redistricting," Lamb told the judge Friday.

Attorney Chris Kerley, representing the city, argued that Zappone's communications occurred after the fact, and that any change in district boundaries is inevitably going to have a partisan impact. Though he did not voice the argument Friday, he had also stipulated in court filings that the accusation of partisan gerrymandering was ridiculous on its face, because City Council positions are nonpartisan.

While there was a tool available that could show the partisan impact of changes to the districts, Kerley stated that the advisory board was advised not to use it.

Hazel acknowledged that Zappone appeared to have understood the political implications of his map, but drew a distinction between that and actively drawing the map to maximize that benefit.

The judge noted that preserving communities of shared interest was an allowable motivation under state law, and also that voting members of the advisory board had drafted similar maps but those members found Zappone's to be the most "elegant expression" of the neighborhood unification goal.

If Zappone had used population data to explicitly craft the map for political advantage, then it wouldn't have perfectly conformed with the stated goal of following neighborhood boundaries, Hazel said.

"Otherwise, the map would look different," he said. "The map wouldn't follow what the law tells councils throughout the state to prioritize. There's nothing logically inconsistent with that."

While the judge did rule that the city's charter appeared to have barred a council member from submitting a map at all, he clarified that there were other reasonable interpretations.

"It's not real clear that his submission of a map was against the charter language," the judge said, before adding, "I personally, when I look at it objectively, I think that it is."

After hearing arguments from both sides, the judge deliberated for five minutes before issuing his ruling. While he stated that he wished he had more time to consider the evidence and statutory language, he noted that he was constrained by the upcoming election.