But the 34 aldermen who support the map created in the Rules Committee with heavy influence from the Black Caucus pledged to block the necessary parliamentary vote needed to consider the referendum swap.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, who was appointed to the post by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, threw her support behind that effort, saying the Rules Committee map best serves her constituents.

Lightfoot, who has largely stayed out of the remap fight and has not publicly endorsed either proposal, would not have been present for Wednesday’s drama. She left City Council early, handing off the duty of presiding over the meeting to City Council President Pro Tempore, Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd.

Lightfoot’s spokesman said she was due at the airport at 2 p.m. for a flight to Washington D.C.

The revised map would shrink the number of aldermen representing Englewood from three under the map filed last year to two, shift the boundaries to keep Austin in two wards instead of three and align the boundaries of the 16th, 20th, 5th, 37th, 29th and 28th wards to line up with the independent commission’s map.

Wednesday’s maneuvering is the latest saga in the intense fight to redraw the city’s political boundaries for the next decade.

The Latino Caucus map will create 15 majority Latino wards and 16 majority Black wards while the Rules Committee map creates 16 majority Black wards, with another with a near-majority Black population, but has 14 majority Latino wards.

Both maps create the city’s first majority Asian American ward centered on Chinatown.

The City Council has until May 19 to approve a ward map with at least 41 votes in order to avoid the referendum.