U.S. Pressures Board of Supervisors to Remap for Latino Representation

The final word came from one of the U.S. Justice Department’s top conservatives, delivered in private to emissaries of Los Angeles County’s conservative Board of Supervisors: you have denied Latinos representation. Fix it.

That was the message given to two supervisorial ambassadors, County Administrative Officer Richard Dixon and County Counsel Dewitt Clinton, when they sought to determine the depth of the federal commitment to force the county to realign supervisor district lines to grant more representation to a large Latino population.

Last month, the Justice Department had notified the county it intended to file a lawsuit charging the county with violating the Voting Rights Act by denying representation to Latinos.

The Justice Department’s hard line means that the county must either undertake a tough court fight against the federal government or bow to Washington and create a supervisorial district in which a Latino candidate has a good chance of being elected.

And if that happens, the impact could be great on a county government, which has not had a minority supervisor since 1981.

Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds, an ideological brother to the Los Angeles County board’s three-man conservative majority, and his Justice Department aides delivered the news.

The department team showed Dixon and Clinton a demographic map clearly demonstrating that a large, contiguous Latino population resides in the eastern and central section of the county. That same population distribution was confirmed by a demographic study conducted for The Times by the Rose Institute of Claremont McKenna College.

Now in Three Districts

That population, which appears to be solidly Latino enough to possibly elect a Latino supervisor, was divided between three supervisor districts in the county’s 1981 redistricting.

The meeting between Reynolds and his aides and the county team on Friday was a significant development in the fight over minority representation on the county governing board, whose five current members are Anglos.

Defenders of the current county system had hoped there might be some leeway in the Justice Department’s position. The board’s conservative majority--Mike Antonovich, Deane Dana and Pete Schabarum--are true believers in the Reagan Administration and political friends of Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III.

But Reynolds and his assistants made it clear the department believes that the five supervisorial districts will have to be redrawn to meet federal objections that ethnic minorities were split up between districts in the 1981 reapportionment, according to County Supervisor Ed Edelman, who discussed the meeting with Dixon and Clinton.

Edelman, whose district includes largely Latino East Los Angeles, did not rule out a court fight against the Justice Department’s proposed suit.

“What they say and what are the facts are two different things,” Edelman said.

But it appeared that a strong combination of politics and the law was against the supervisors.

The Justice Department decision to move against the county, it was learned, came after a lengthy investigation.

Richard Fajardo, staff counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said representatives of his organization met with Justice Department officials in Los Angeles last fall.

“We had been doing our own investigation,” said Fajardo. “When the Justice Department was in town in October and November, MALDEF met with them and we compared notes. We talked about some of the difficulties in the case, some of the possibilities.”

The investigation had been preceded by complaints from local Latino leaders who said the current supervisorial lines excluded Latinos from the board, Fajardo said.

Those complaints came after a previous Justice Department action forced the Los Angeles City Council to create a Central City district in which Councilwoman Gloria Molina, a Latina, was elected. No complaints have been filed on the representation of other minority groups. In general, Asians are scattered around the county and blacks, for the most part, live in the 4th District, represented by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, a white politician who has always received strong black support.

Thus it appears the county case, like the one in the city, followed a slow bureaucratic route, beginning with complaints from local residents and finally ending up on Reynolds’ desk.

And even though a county reapportionment might cause inconvenience to the current board, it would be a regional and national political plus for the Republicans. The GOP has been courting the Latino vote and the failure of Los Angeles County to have a Latino county supervisor has stirred unhappiness among Latino leaders throughout the Southwest.

“I don’t know if that’s true, but I have heard it speculated,” said Supervisor Edelman.

And creation of a Latino district might not affect the current conservative domination of the five-member board.

At present, there are two liberals, Edelman and Hahn, whose South-Central district includes some Latinos. Among the three conservatives, Antonovich represents some Latinos in the Pacoima section of the San Fernando Valley; Schabarum has many Latinos in the San Gabriel Valley part of his district; Dana represents a district that is mostly white except for predominantly black Compton.

If forced to reapportion, the three conservatives would probably try to create a Latino district at the expense of Edelman and Hahn. But it takes four votes to approve a redistricting plan, opening the door to unpredictable dealing between the five supervisors.

Before that happens, county officials are expected to ask the Justice Department to delay forced redistricting until after the 1990 Census. “We are only two years away from the 1990 Census,” Edelman said. “The Justice Department wants us to use the 1980 Census. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

MALDEF is expected to fight any delays in court. In the city of Los Angeles case, the Justice Department successfully opposed city pleas for a delay.

One solution being considered is expansion of the Board of Supervisors.

Last week, Hahn asked Clinton to put together information on the possibility of enlarging the board to seven members. That would permit creation of a Latino district without hurting the incumbents.

However, such a move would require voter approval of a Charter amendment and voters turned down a proposal to enlarge the board in 1978.