New Life for the Snyder Syndrome

Most people see only irony in the timing of last week’s decision by the Justice Department to sue the City of Los Angeles for discriminating against Latinos in drawing up City Council district boundaries in 1982. But there’s poetic justice in the lawsuit, too.

The irony is obvious. The federal suit, which cites among its evidence the fact that only one Latino has served on the City Council in this century, was filed less than two weeks before a special election in which another Latino is finally expected to be elected to the council.

On Tuesday, voters in the 14th District, which covers the northeast part of the city from Eagle Rock to Boyle Heights, will vote to fill the seat recently vacated by longtime incumbent Arthur K. Snyder, who resigned from office. Six of the seven candidates to replace him are Mexican-Americans, including the acknowledged front runner, state Assemblyman Richard Alatorre (D-Los Angeles).

The poetic justice is less obvious. It arises from the fact that the special election in the 14th District is noteworthy only because city officials, over the years, did precisely what the federal government alleges in its lawsuit: They diluted the Latino population in this city so that it is significant in one, and only one, council district, rather than several.

The Justice Department lawsuit contends that this process of dilution began when the city reapportioned districts in keeping with the 1980 census. Despite a significant increase in Latino population throughout the city, from 18% in 1970 to 27%, the vast majority of Latino voters were left in the 14th District. I would argue, however, that this cynical process actually began in 1972.

That was the year in which Latino political activists first approached the council with what now seems like a modest request. They lobbied for two Latino districts rather than the one that council members were considering creating on the Eastside (which became the present 14th District). The activists produced demographic research and maps indicating that, by drawing district lines differently, the council could create two districts with significant Latino population. The 14th would still have a 43% Latino population. But the largest share of Latino population would go into the neighboring 13th District, which covered part of the Eastside, most of downtown and the increasingly Latino neighborhoods west of it. This proposed district covered the area represented by the last Latino to sit on the council, Edward R. Roybal, who was elected to Congress in 1962.

The council rejected the Latino plan of 1972, and stuck Snyder with a 14th District that was 64% Latino at the time and that has since increased to 75% in Latino population. The Latinos protested, and so did Snyder, but to no avail. To their credit, they did not surrender meekly.

Snyder learned Spanish, hired an effective Latino staff and wound up becoming a genuinely popular incumbent for 13 years. Of course, he had problems that his more comfortably entrenched colleagues did not have to worry about. He was constantly being challenged by ambitious young Latino politicians, not just in regular elections but also in two recall votes. The constant Latino pressure against Snyder came to be dubbed the “Snyder syndrome.” And, when he resigned earlier this year, Snyder cited the continual political pressure that he faced as a contributing factor.

Aside from constantly attacking Snyder, Latino activists came right back at the council in 1982. This time they argued for not just two districts where Latinos could wield political clout, but several. No less than six of the 15 council members, with districts ranging from Central Los Angeles to the eastern San Fernando Valley, faced the prospect of having more Latinos in their districts under the 1982 Latino redistricting plan.

But, as in 1972, the council opted to protect incumbents rather than promote minority rights, and it ignored the Latino petition. The cynicism of this decision was not lost on the local office of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which harshly criticized it as a dilution of minority voting strength under the 1973 Voting Rights Act. The commission staff passed its findings along to the Justice Department, which responded with the lawsuit filed last week.

Now, regardless of what happens on Tuesday in the 14th District, the city faces the prospect of a long, expensive lawsuit that will make all of the city’s officials, including Mayor Tom Bradley, appear to be anti-Latino if they fight it. And, if the city loses, the council could have to give up the prerogative of drawing its own district lines to some federal judge. Even if the city settles out of court (as New York City recently did with a similar lawsuit), the council will have to draw new district lines that will be closer to what Latinos asked for in 1982.

In effect, the Justice Department lawsuit has created the potential for a whole new series of council districts in which ambitious young Latinos will be challenging entrenched incumbents, probably soon. So the 14th District’s special election next week will mark not the close of a chapter in Los Angeles political history, but the opening of a new one.

Soon Snyder’s former colleagues will find out what he faced all those years, having to deal with all those uppity Latinos in his district. Just when it looked dead, the Snyder syndrome has been given new life.