It’s Embarrassing

There is more than a little irony, and a strong whiff of partisan politics, in the Justice Department’s lawsuit charging Los Angeles city officials with discriminating against Latinos when the City Council reapportioned itself in 1982. But neither element detracts from the merits of the case.

Neither Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III nor William Bradford Reynolds, his chief assistant for civil rights, has been enthusiastic about promoting the cause of civil rights; on some issues, like school desegregation and affirmative action, they have tried to set the clock back. And it cannot have escaped their notice that a suit against Los Angeles under the Voting Rights Act would embarrass a city government largely controlled by Democrats.

But there is no denying that, on paper at least, a credible case can be made that city government has not been as aggressive and as enthusiastic as it could be in opening itself up to participation by Los Angeles’ largest minority group--the 27% of local residents who are of Latin American extraction.There has been only one Latino on the council in this century, despite the rapid growth and spread of the city’s Latino population.

During the hearings preceding the 1982 reapportionment, Latino community groups proposed ways in which the council could improve Latino voters’ effect in the city. Beyond the city’s Eastside, where the 14th District is 75% Latino, they specifically proposed putting more Latino voters into Gilbert Lindsay’s 9th District, near downtown, and Howard Finn’s 1st District, in the east San Fernando Valley. They were ignored.

Council President Pat Russell reacted to the federal lawsuit by claiming that efforts to redraw the boundaries of the city’s 15 council districts after the 1980 census were “very careful and conscientious.” Perhaps. But the care was exercised more to protect the interests of the 15 council incumbents than it was to protect the voting rights of minority groups. Now the council may have to pay the price for its self-serving strategy.