Board Fights Court Order on Seeking New Voters

With a blast at the judge who issued it, a split Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors moved Tuesday to overturn a court order requiring health and welfare workers to see to it that thousands of poor and minority residents register to vote.

Board Chairman Pete Schabarum led the criticism with a personal attack against Superior Court Judge Jack M. Newman, who issued the ruling last week. Schabarum, a Republican who often is critical of liberal judges, said he had learned that Newman had once been an attorney for the Democratic Party.

“I’m very perplexed why your office didn’t (seek to disqualify) this guy,” Schabarum told County Counsel DeWitt Clinton. “(This ruling) is a terrible disservice again by one of our alleged judges making law instead of interpreting it.”

Clinton said he had no knowledge of Newman’s background.

On a 3-2 vote, the board ordered Clinton to prepare an appeal to Newman’s ruling.

Question Posed

Afterward, Schabarum was asked by a reporter if he believed that Newman was biased and should have disqualified himself.

“Based on his background, it’s obvious to me his bias would bring about the kind of decision he rendered,” Schabarum said. “The guy has a Democratic Party background out the kazoo. This guy obviously has an uncommon bias that marches to the Democratic Party.”

Newman, asked to respond to Schabarum’s remarks, said, “I really can’t comment on his comments, because of the (judicial) canons of ethics. It’s not appropriate to do that.”

However, he added, “the Democratic Party was not a party to this case.”

Newman said he had been a member of both the state and Los Angeles County Democratic Central committees and had performed some legal work for them, although he was not retained as counsel, before his appointment to the bench in 1976 by former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

The judge, at the request of the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause of California and Human SERVE, a national voter registration organization, granted a preliminary injunction Thursday ordering the voter registration outreach program. The plaintiffs had contended that thousands of low-income and minority residents were not registered to vote because of confusing procedures.

The court order--if upheld on appeal--would lead to an estimated 20,000, or nearly 25%, of the county’s work force eventually being trained as deputy registrar-recorders. Primarily health clinic and welfare workers, these county employees would seek to register as voters all qualified indigent and minority residents they encountered on the job.

Civil rights lawyers argued that local officials had not actively followed state Elections Code provisions adopted in 1975 that require counties with low numbers of voters compared to population to identify and register eligible residents.

An estimated 31% of Los Angeles County residents eligible to vote are not registered, officials have said. Most of those, civil rights lawyers believe, are nonwhite and low-income residents.

County lawyers, citing figures from the registrar-recorder’s office, countered in court arguments that a number of successful efforts have been launched to sign up more than 250,000 prospective voters in the county. Civil rights lawyers said the steps did not go far enough.

Longer Waits

Citing the county’s efforts, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a member of the board’s conservative majority that includes Schabarum and Deane Dana, offered the motion to appeal Newman’s voter registration order. He said the ruling “will increase the wait for services and treatment for those in need, create additional paper work for county workers and increase costs to the taxpayer by more than $2 million.”

“The court ruling was totally unnecessary,” Antonovich added. “The county already has over 3,500 locations where voters can register . . . (and) a 24-hour hot line to advise citizens on where to register most conveniently, and citizens can also request voter registration forms by mail.”

However, Schabarum’s attack on Newman, rather than Antonovich’s comments, drew the strongest response from the board’s two Democrats, Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn.

“I’m surprised Mr. Schabarum would see this issue as cynically as he has,” Edelman said. “It’s in all of our interests to have people vote. This has nothing to do with the Democratic Party.”

Last December, Edelman and Hahn were on the short end of a 3-2 vote that would have accomplished what Newman’s ruling ordered. Tuesday, the two Democrats voted against the legal challenge to the Superior Court ruling.

Jab From Hahn

Hahn, in a lighter vein, said, “I don’t know why you worry, Pete. Democrats vote for Republicans all the time.”

The Democratic Party probably would be helped by a massive sign-up of voters from minority and low-income groups, whose members have traditionally sided with Democrats in modern times.