The League of Women Voters of San Luis Obispo County officially got the green light to join the citizen-led lawsuit challenging SLO County's new redistricting map, following a June 17 court ruling.

SLO Superior Court Judge Rita Federman sided with the League and its recent motion to intervene in the case—concluding that the 60-year-old local nonprofit chapter had demonstrated a "direct and immediate interest" in the controversial map.

• Map Courtesy Of SLO County
• NEW LITIGANT The League of Women Voters of SLO County will join a coalition of citizens in challenging the county's new, controversial redistricting map.

"While the League's general interest in upholding voting rights may not be a sufficient interest to permit intervention, ... that some of its members' rights to vote may be deferred or otherwise affected is a sufficiently specific interest that is directly affected by the outcome of the litigation," Federman wrote in the ruling.

League attorneys now have until July 1 to file a "petition in intervention" to join the proceedings. League President Cindy Marie Absey declared it "momentous" news in a June 23 press release.

"This is the first time in our history we have taken legal action to support voting rights," Absey said of the local chapter.

Absey underscored how the League consistently registered opposition to the county's new redistricting map—commonly referred to as the Patten Map—"due to its impacts on 98,000 of SLO County's 217,000 eligible voters."

Many residents agreed; League membership nearly tripled last year amid the redistricting process, Absey said.

"Clearly, the unfair redistricting process struck at the heart of our members' passion. We simply could not stand by," she said.

The League will join SLO County Citizens for Good Government—the coalition that initially formed to sue the county—in challenging the map under the California Fair Maps Act.

Ron Turovsky, an attorney retained by the League for the litigation, noted in the press release that the case could serve as a "bellwether case of the Fair Maps Act."

Citizens for Good Government directors Jim Gardiner, Patricia Gomez, Linda Seifert, and Rick TerBorch called the ruling "a big deal" in a June 21 press release of their own.

"The League's unique perspective and experience should prove to be very helpful in arguing our case as forcefully as possible," the group stated.

The ongoing lawsuit is still in its discovery phase, according to Citizens for Good Government. The next case management conference is scheduled for July 29. Recent discussions have "centered on discovery that we believe may be necessary to determine if the record is complete."

"The wheels of justice sometimes seem to move maddeningly slowly," the press release concluded, "but they are moving." Δ