Redistricting drama threw Boston City Council into chaos. Enter Ruthzee Louijeune.

Enter Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune. When she took over the process from another council committee in early May, her colleagues were bickering over everything from where precincts were placed on the map to who should be in charge of redrawing the lines. After two weeks, four map proposals, five marathon hearings, and countless personal attacks, Louijeune passed a new version of the map 10 to 2.

It was a remarkable show of consensus on a body with a reputation for infighting and disorganization, and a feat many feared would come too late if it happened at all. With legal concerns now appearing nearly resolved, the effort Louijeune led appears to have kept city elections on schedule.

For Louijeune, it was a moment under the klieg lights that raised speculation about her political future. The first-term councilor has emerged from the fray looking like a thoughtful, cool head on a council of brash talkers and hot tempers; even the federal judge who blocked the city’s earlier map praised the process Louijeune ran, saying this spring’s effort better adhered to legal principles than last fall’s.

Louijeune was in some ways an obvious choice to lead the work of mapmaking. A Harvard-educated attorney, she has previous experience working on redistricting cases before the US Supreme Court. And, as an at-large councilor representing the entire city, she did not have her own political interests to defend in the lines, making her a potentially fairer mapmaker than some of her colleagues.

Recognizing those credentials, some fellow councilors pushed for redistricting to be handled in a committee Louijeune leads — the Committee on Civil Rights and Immigrant Advancement — rather than in the Redistricting Committee that had debated the maps last fall or the so-called Committee of the Whole, which includes every councilor and is led by the council president.

But Louijeune was initially reluctant to take on redistricting, she acknowledged in a recent interview; she knows from her work as a lawyer how “messy and contentious” it can get. That was a particular risk on this chaotic council, which earlier this month, passed and then immediately un-passed the city’s $4.2 billion budget.

“I don’t know if I knew how it was going to happen . . . I knew it was going to be very difficult,” Louijeune said. But she never doubted the council would get there, she said.

“We needed a map so that we could have an election. There was no alternative.”

The first Haitian American elected to the City Council, 36-year-old Louijeune stood out even in 2021′s packed field of at-large council candidates. She had worked for Senator Elizabeth Warren; she earned high-profile endorsements, including Warren’s, and raised enough money to run a television advertisement, a rare achievement for council races. Come Election Day, the first-time candidate earned more votes than any non-incumbent councilor on the ballot.

On a City Council known for big personalities and ugly conflict, Louijeune has not always offered the loudest opinion or splashiest newspaper quote. But from her quieter perch near the council’s ideological center, she has more than once led the body through a particularly thorny legislative process. Last year, she carried the controversial slate of pay raises for elected officials, including councilors. After the mayor vetoed the package, she negotiated and passed a more modest set of increases. Some in City Hall see Louijeune as a contender for council president next year; she would not say whether she would seek the position.

Redistricting, as Louijeune well knew when she took it on, is one of the most contentious issues a legislative body ever debates. Every 10 years, the council must redraw its nine districts in response to population changes captured in the US Census, ensuring not only that each district contains roughly the same number of people, but also that every community in the city has a fair chance to elect candidates who will represent them well. The council’s hard-fought first attempt landed the city in federal court, where a judge ruled councilors had likely prioritized race in an improper manner.

Beyond the geographical, logistical, and legal challenges they face, mapmakers tread treacherous political ground. Not all of the city’s two dozen neighborhoods can be kept whole within districts, and even tiny proposed changes to individual precincts can feel like major threats to district councilors.

“We knew this was going to be a major challenge, and I just felt like [Louijeune] had the experience to meet the moment,” said Councilor Gabriela Coletta, who pushed Louijeune to step up. “These conversations were difficult, and they were long and they were arduous. . . . But she was able to get a 10-to-2 vote, uniting a lot of the council, and that is a huge feat in of itself.”

The process got off to a rocky start. Councilors spent their first meeting after the court ruling arguing over which committee should be in charge of redistricting discussions. At the first committee hearing days later, councilors debated what, exactly, they were legally allowed to debate — specific maps or just the lawsuit itself?

“This body is becoming an embarrassment,” Councilor Michael Flaherty said that afternoon.

But by the end of that week, Louijeune had narrowed the discussion to a single map — one she proposed. When colleagues complained that their alternatives had been dismissed, Louijeune, unruffled, emphasized again and again the proposal was not “my map,” but a starting point for a “council map” she hoped they’d build together.

Opinions — and criticism — abounded. The council’s more conservative members, and the group of residents and neighborhood groups that sued the city over the first map, pressed for southern parts of Dorchester to remain united in District 3. Progressive councilors and advocacy groups warned that Mattapan was becoming a political football. Accusations flew that some elected officials were pushing changes to benefit themselves, not their constituents.

There were direct, and in many cases deeply personal, attacks on Louijeune herself, even from councilors who typically align with her politically. Councilor Julia Mejia told Louijeune, “I respect your legal eagle status, but it’s not a matter of, just cause you’re a woman of color we’re all gonna fall in line.”

Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who represents Roxbury, accused Louijeune of privileging other neighborhoods, and other councilors’ perspectives, over her own.

“I’m trying to be as forgiving and patient as possible, but this is highly offensive,” Fernandes Anderson said during one hearing.

Louijeune said she tried not to take the debate personally — but also that the process taught her a lesson about “the blood sport that politics can be.”

Council President Ed Flynn grew visibly angry during one hearing when Louijeune made a tweak to the South End border of his district. Louijeune took him aside during a brief recess and gave him another chance to speak when the meeting resumed. When the map passed days later, the change was in it, and Flynn voted yes.

Louijeune spent the night before the vote at home, with a mug of mint tea and a slew of map alternatives, Web links to each scribbled on a crowded Post-It note stuck to her laptop. Negotiations continued even after the council’s noon meeting had begun. Louijeune spent the morning juggling phone calls from councilor after councilor, then walked into the chamber an hour late but cautiously optimistic she’d win a unanimous vote.

Ultimately, Mejia and Councilor Kendra Lara voted against the map; Lara said in an interview afterward that Louijeune had “capitulated” to outside pressures and let down some communities of color.

Most reviews were more positive. When Mayor Michelle Wu signed the map into law, she made a point of praising “the leadership of committee chair Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune.” After the council vote, Flaherty summed up her work on the matter as “deliberate, thoughtful, and fair.”

And outside advocates who agree on little else about the maps generally offered praise.

“The results are there,” said Glen Hannington, an attorney who sued the city over the first map. Vanessa Snow, policy and organizing director for the nonprofit MassVOTE, credited Louijeune with “making herself available to her constituents” and taking in “very tense conversations.”

“We didn’t get everything that the coalition wanted,” said Snow, whose organization along with several others had called for different district boundaries in some communities of color. “But I think it was the best compromise that the City Council could’ve made.”

Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emmaplatoff.