County’s Duty to Register Voters Tested in Court Case

Like other communities, Los Angeles County has moved in recent years to increase voter registration--distributing mail-in forms at 3,500 locations, employing scores of bilingual registrars and providing 24-hour, toll-free telephone help in a $1-million-a-year “voter-outreach” program. Nonetheless, a coalition of civil rights groups brought suit against the Board of Supervisors, contending that the county was still not doing all it should to sign up minorities and the poor.

A Superior Court judge agreed that the county was failing in its duty under state law and issued the first ruling of its kind that would require officials to deputize about 20,000 county workers to sign up eligible voters.

Pivotal Test

On Monday, the state Supreme Court will hear what has become a pivotal test of how far local officials must go to step up voter registration. While the law clearly allows local authorities to voluntarily institute such plans, only Los Angeles County has been ordered by a court to deputize non-public safety employees as voter registrars.

A long list of rights and professional organizations, joined by state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, is asking the justices to uphold the trial court order, arguing that the law requires a much stronger effort to correct sharp disparities in registration rates within the county.

“This is a conservative, good government case,” says Mark D. Rosenbaum of Los Angeles, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing Common Cause and other groups that brought the taxpayer suit.

“Studies uniformly show that once registered, people vote,” Rosenbaum said. “When you have areas where less than one-third of the eligible population is registered, you’re not even approaching democracy.”

Attorneys for the supervisors, backed by conservative public-interest law firms, respond that its current voter-outreach plan fully complies with the law and that the courts have no right to force the county to adopt a bigger, more costly plan.

‘Improper Exercise of Power’

“We think this is an improper exercise of judicial power,” said Paul D. Kamenar of the Washington Legal Foundation. “This is a decision that should be made by appropriate officials--not by a judge.

“There has been no evidence of discrimination--intentional or unintentional. It’s simply a fact that there has been less registration in some population areas, but that’s not the fault of the county,” Kamenar said.

Charles S. Vogel of Los Angeles, a lawyer for the supervisors, points out that the county already employs 393 registrars--85 of whom are bilingual--and spends more on registration than any other county in the state. The trial court order, if upheld, would both raise costs and interfere with the services employees currently provide, Vogel said.

In earlier proceedings, Gary W. Wells, a deputy director of the county’s Health Services Department, which like other departments is to provide people to carry out the expanded registration program, said it would have a “major adverse impact” on the department’s ability to provide health care. Wells calculated that it could cost $1.5 million a year in time required for employees to interview about 750,000 adult patients and then register those eligible to vote.

The case also carries partisan political overtones. Generally, areas where registration is low tend to vote Democratic--and the Board of Supervisors, which opposes expanded registration, is dominated by Republicans.

But the rights groups and their backers deny their aims are partisan--and say Republicans as well as Democrats could benefit.

“Younger Hispanics are voting more and more for Republicans,” said R. Samuel Paz, an Alhambra lawyer representing the Mexican American Bar Assn. as a “friend of the court” in the case. “Not only both parties but the entire society is served better when Latinos are involved in the political process.”

1976 State Law

The suit arose from a state law enacted in 1976 requiring local officials to take affirmative steps to register eligible voters “at the highest possible level.”

In 1985, the board considered but set aside a proposal by Supervisor Ed Edelman providing for county employees in daily contact with the public to find eligible voters and help them register.

The county continued with its existing program, under which the number of unregistered but eligible voters declined by nearly 4% over a five-year period, according to the county.

Common Cause and the other groups went to court, contending that the supervisors had failed to implement an effective outreach program. The plaintiffs cited census data showing, for example, that in the city of Bell, where median family income was $15,414 annually, the voter registration level was only 32%. By contrast, the suit noted, in Palos Verdes, where family income was $50,738, voter registration was 93%.

Preliminary Injunction

In 1986, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jack M. Newman issued a preliminary injunction requiring the county to expand its effort and begin soliciting voter registration in health clinics, welfare offices and other agencies with frequent public contact.

Deputizing public employees to solicit and register voters would result in a substantial increase in the number of voters, the judge said, and the county’s claims that such a program would be too costly and interfere with employees’ regular duties were “speculative,” he added.

Later, a state Court of Appeal in Los Angeles upheld the order, requiring the county to “identify, deputize and train” county employees to serve as voter registrars in addition to their usual jobs.

The panel, among other things, criticized the county for “a total lack of consideration of and apparent indifference to the problem” of disproportionate under-registration by minorities and the poor.

‘Better Job’

In its appeal to the state Supreme Court, the supervisors argue that the plaintiffs lack authority to bring a taxpayer suit to compel the county to simply do a “better job” of registering voters.

The decision to deputize county workers to help register voters is one for the Legislature and the supervisors, the defendants say.

The board rejects the notion that it is denying anyone the right to register and vote, noting in briefs to the court that eligible voters “need only make a phone call or pick up a registration card” at any one of several thousand locations.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, joining with the Washington Legal Foundation to support the county, warns that the court-ordered registration plan not only could have a “severely negative impact” on county finances but could also force renegotiation of collective bargaining agreements with workers who suddenly find themselves with newly assigned duties.

Outside Support

Common Cause and the other plaintiffs are also receiving outside support in the case from the attorney general’s office, among others.

The county has failed to effectively reach “all segments of the community,” and the trial court rightfully ordered an expanded registration program, state Deputy Atty. Gen. Marian M. Johnston said in a brief to the court. The harm suffered--the “substantial loss of the fundamental right to vote”--outweighs any “speculative” costs in time and money to the county, Johnston said.

The League of Women Voters, also backing the rights groups, calls voter-registration requirements “the most significant barrier to voting” in the United States--and says “easing the burden of registration” is the key to higher turnout.

The league observes that officials in Contra Costa and Alameda counties voluntarily deputized county workers as registrars and reported “little if any” resulting problems.