Justice Dept. Will Accept Remapping but Seeks Early Election

The U.S. Justice Department said Friday that it is prepared to accept the Los Angeles City Council’s redistricting plan, but it first wants the city to call an election next year in the new heavily Latino district, a demand that could jeopardize Councilman John Ferraro’s political career.

The department, in its first response to the council’s redrawing of district boundaries, asked the federal court to renumber the new predominantly Latino district, from the 13th to the 4th, to allow an election next year instead of in 1989. The renumbering would make Ferraro, currently the 4th District councilman, the incumbent in the new district. Councilman Michael Woo currently represents the 13th.

“The practical effect of it is that John Ferraro is without a job,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre, who drafted the council’s redistricting plan. Alatorre predicted that the council will fight the change in court.

The Justice Department response, filed in U.S. District Court, is important because it was that agency that brought the lawsuit charging that the city had carved up Latino neighborhoods in its 1982 redistricting--thus diluting Latino political strength--in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

In response, the council redrew its district lines to create a new, heavily Latino district, the 13th. The realignment set up a race, scheduled next April, between Ferraro and Woo in a new 4th District comprising the Hollywood-Wilshire area, and created the 13th District near downtown.

The department said in a seven-page court document that the redistricting plan “ameliorates the objectionable aspects of the challenged 1982 plan, and . . . the district boundaries comply” with the Voting Rights Act.

“We are unable to agree at this time, however, that the lawsuit is resolved totally,” the document said.

The department said its remaining concern centers on waiting until 1989 for an election in the new 13th District. The three-year wait for an election was also to be the basis of the challenge of the redistricting plan by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, an intervenor in the lawsuit.

“The whole purpose of devising this district was to afford a fair and effective franchise to Hispanic citizens, and it seems self-defeating to award that franchise but to stay its exercise for another two years,” the department said.

Elections Staggered

Even-numbered council districts are up for election next year; odd-numbered districts in 1989.

A provision of the City Charter precludes the council from simply calling a special election in the new district. The provision says that the council cannot shorten a councilman’s term as a result of redistricting. Woo, who currently represents the 13th district, has been in office only one year.

The deparment asked U.S. District Judge James A. Ideman, who is presiding over the redistricting case, to allow 20 days in which to work out a solution with the City Council. If the city will not agree to renumber the districts, the department said it will ask the court to do so.

A spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn said his office is reviewing the department’s response and would have no comment. Jonathan Steinberg, a private counsel to the city on the redistricting case, said he is pleased that the department signed off on the new district lines.

“The serious portion of the litigation is now over,” Steinberg said. He declined to comment on the department’s request for an election.

‘Council Will Fight It’

Alatorre, however, said, “It is likely the council will fight it.”

“The council already voted reluctantly to put two incumbents together,” he added. “To ask them to take the extra mile, I don’t think they will be willing to do that.”

“I’m shocked and dismayed and disappointed and everything else,” Ferraro said. “I don’t think the council will be happy.”

Ferraro said he would not be able to move to the new heavily Latino district, as required, because of his ailing wife.

If the district is renumbered, he could run for election there next year, and if he loses, return to his old district and run against Woo there in 1989.