NAACP Will Enter Suit on City Council Redistricting

The National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People is concerned that a Latino group’s proposed Los Angeles City Council reapportionment plan could deprive blacks of political and economic clout by taking downtown away from black City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay and giving it to Councilman Richard Alatorre, a Latino.

That is one reason why the NAACP says it will join the federal lawsuit that has challenged current council district boundaries. The decision pointed up the potential for ethnic discord in the city’s redistricting dispute.

“We wish to protect the interests of black voters and black City Council members,” Raymond Johnson Jr., president of the Los Angeles NAACP chapter, said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged in the suit that the boundaries of the 15 Los Angeles City Council districts discriminate against Latinos. The city has only one Latino council member, Alatorre, who was elected last year, even though Latinos make up 27.5% of the city’s population.

4th District Switch

Recently, a major Latino organization, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, joined the lawsuit as a co-plaintiff. It submitted a reapportionment plan that would shift the 4th District--now centered around the mid-Wilshire and the affluent and predominantly white Hancock Park areas--eastward into strongly Latino neighborhoods. In addition, the predominantly black Crenshaw district would be taken from Council President Pat Russell, who is white but strongly supported by blacks, and the downtown area would be taken from Lindsay.

Wednesday, the council voted to draw its own plan, hoping to avoid having district lines forced on it by a federal court.

Johnson said the NAACP will go to court in the next two weeks to seek status as an intervener in the lawsuit brought by the Justice Department.

With three of Los Angeles’ council members--Lindsay, Robert Farrell and David Cunningham--being blacks, Johnson said he does not feel that blacks are under-represented in the city.

But he said that taking downtown, with its big businesses, away from a black council member would hurt the black community in its efforts to negotiate with banks and other big corporations for black jobs and financing of black business enterprises.

“The downtown area is the nerve center of the city,” Johnson said.

And he said that depriving Russell of the residential Crenshaw portion of the 6th District would weaken black political influence in that area.

Could Lose Influence

Referring to Russell’s political ambitions, he said, “Pat Russell may be our next mayor and her successor, if there is no black constituent base, may not be as interested in our concerns.”