Charter Amendment 2 Is Great on Paper, but--

Charter Amendment 2 in next week’s Los Angeles city election is one of those well-intentioned proposals that look great on paper but would most likely not have the salutary effect that backers hope for.

The idea is that by adding two seats to the Los Angeles City Council, which has been a 15-member body since the 1920s, the city’s large Latino and Asian populations would would have a better shot at electing one of their own to the council.

Sponsors of the measure, including Mayor Tom Bradley and Council President Pat Russell, say that it would lead to “better representation of our growing and diverse population.” They mean that reapportionment to accommodate two new council districts, if carried out as the measure intends--a big if-- would create a predominantly Latino district on the Eastside and a largely Asian district near the central city. This, they think, is one way in which Los Angeles can get around the embarrassment of having had no Latino on the council for more than 20 years and never having had an Asian council member.

I endorse the principle behind the amendment: Ethnic minorities that have been discriminated against must be given opportunities to participate in the political system, because the longer they are excluded, the greater the risk that they will become permanently alienated from the political process and look to improve their lot through other, less acceptable, means.

That stated, however, I must add that it is hard to muster enthusiasm for a proposition that is flawed by bad timing and mistaken assumptions.

Charter Amendment 2 is being offered to the voters at a time when people are more concerned about their tax bills than about minority representation in local government. While proponents insist that two new council seats would not cost city taxpayers any more money, opponents have leaped on the possibility that it would. That argument is likely to carry weight with people who are voting the day before their property-tax bills are due, a week before their state and federal income-tax returns are filed.

Of course, Bradley and the City Council knew all that before they put Charter Amendment 2 onto the ballot, and they did it anyway. They just wanted to relieve the political pressure building since the last time they had to redraw councilmanic district lines. The pressure has come primarily from Latino activists who have become increasingly frustrated at their inability to put a Latino onto the council ever since Edward R. Roybal left for Congress in 1962.

While I understand their frustration, the hope that Latino activists are putting into a council expansion is based more on wishful thinking than on cold realities. They want to believe that a predominantly Latino district will inevitably elect a Latino council member. The history of the 14th Council District, which is 75% Latino and covers barrio communities like Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno, should have disabused them of that naive notion long ago.

The 14th District was created in 1972 under pressure from Latino activists--and it has been represented by an Anglo, Arthur K. Snyder, ever since. Snyder (who says that he will retire sometime later this year) has beaten every challenger, in regular elections as well as in recall attempts. That seems ample proof that Latinos vote not only for Latinos--especially when a non-Latino candidate has a record of responsiveness to their community, which Snyder has.

A less obvious but equally important reason for Snyder’s success is that the demographics of the 14th District are deceiving. While its population is 75% Latino, many of those people cannot vote because they are not citizens. Many more of them are young--either too young to vote or below the age (about 30) when citizens begin voting regularly. These same demographic factors will exist in any new “Latino” district that is created if Charter Amendment 2 passes, and probably in any “Asian” district as well.

What many Latino and Asian activists forget, or prefer to overlook, is that the inner-city neighborhoods of Los Angeles have traditionally been, and remain, ports of entry for immigrants. Not all of them make the adjustment to citizenship smoothly or rapidly. This is especially the case among Mexican immigrants, because their homeland is so close. Not surprisingly, they have the lowest naturalization rate of any group of immigrants to this country.

Historically it has been the children of immigrants who become politically active, often after they have moved out of the city and into the suburbs. That is why there are many more Latino and Asian office-holders--mayors, council members, city commissioners, school board members and even congressmen--in nearby cities like Monterey Park, Montebello and Pico Rivera than there are in Los Angeles itself.

Those are the communities that will launch most of the political leaders of Southern California’s two fastest-growing ethnic minorities, regardless of what happens to Charter Amendment 2 next Tuesday.