County Digs In to Fight U.S. Suit on Latino District

Los Angeles County officials, contending that there is no way to draw supervisorial districts that would enhance political representation for Latinos, say they have embarked on an all-out campaign to fight a Justice Department voting rights lawsuit.

The county’s resistance to federal demands for redistricting prompted a strong protest from Latino groups who likened the county’s attitude to that of Southern politicians who fought voting rights reforms in the 1960s.

Two federal court lawsuits contend that the Board of Supervisors drew district lines in such a way that the county’s 2 million Latinos were deprived of the opportunity to elect a representative to the five-member board. Citing the federal Voting Rights Act, the suits demand a realignment to create a Latino majority district.

County Counsel DeWitt Clinton said Tuesday that the county is ready to wage a “vigorous defense” of the status quo. To help with the legal battle, the county has hired a $235-an-hour private attorney to argue that what the Justice Department requires is impossible to achieve and that the charge of discrimination is unwarranted.

“The information we have developed indicates to us that you cannot form such a district, the numbers aren’t there,” Clinton said. “It’s not even close.”

Mark Weaver, a Justice Department spokesman, was quick to dispute the county’s position, however, insisting that county officials could comply with the Voting Rights Act if they wished.

“What we’re saying is that DeWitt Clinton is wrong, that they can create a significant voting age majority district,” said Weaver, who spoke by telephone from Washington.

“We’re not in the business of determining where to draw those lines,” he said, but he added: “We’re in the business of enforcing the Voting Rights Act, and they are in violation.”

In a federal complaint filed earlier this month, the Justice Department accused the supervisors of violating the constitutional and civil rights of Latinos in the 1981 drawing of district boundaries. Two weeks earlier, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California had filed a similar class-action federal lawsuit on behalf of Latino voters.

Some of those Latino activists appeared Tuesday at a news conference to charge that the Board of Supervisors is being as stubborn as officials of Southern states who once barred minority voters from the polls. “What we’ve got here is pure intransigence,” said Raul Nunez, president of the Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Assn.

Alan Clayton, a statewide representative of the League of United Latin American Citizens, added that the county supervisors were blocking the political progress of Latinos by refusing to correct the redistricting lines.

“I think it parallels what happened in the South,” Clayton said. “We have a white power structure that refuses to give up power, only this time the victims are Latinos.”

Although county officials dispute the Southern states comparison, the Justice Department contends that Latinos have been deprived of their rights by a history of discrimination in the county.

‘Amicable Solution’

Shortly after filing the lawsuit, Assistant Atty. Gen. William Bradford Reynolds, who heads the civil rights division of the Justice Department, expressed optimism that there would be “an amicable solution.”

Richard Fajardo, staff counsel for MALDEF, said that lawyers in that case would also welcome settlement talks but only if county officials are genuinely interested.

“If they want to talk seriously about settling the case, we’ll listen,” Fajardo said. “But what we have to be careful about and what we will not allow to happen is letting this become a stalling tactic.”

Some resistance to the federal complaint was expected from the county. But Clinton’s blunt statement--that the county cannot draw a district that would provide Latinos with a political majority--fuels speculation that the voting rights case will not be resolved without a trial. In addition, the board hired attorney John McDermott and his Century City law firm, which has defended cities in half a dozen voting rights cases, to represent the county in what is expected to be a consolidation of the two federal lawsuits.

McDermott, who represented the City of Pomona in its successful defense of a recent voting rights case, refused to discuss the Los Angeles County case and referred all questions to county counsel Clinton.

Clinton said the county is determined to take on both the Justice Department and public-interest law firms.

“We hired the absolute best and most experienced lawyer in the field to vigorously defend this case,” Clinton said of the board’s decision to retain McDermott for a $235-an-hour fee.

At the core of the county’s legal argument is the belief that while a sizable number of Latinos can be placed in a district, the large proportion of noncitizens and children in the Latino community would make it extremely difficult to create a majority voting district.

Same Strategy Failed

But MALDEF’s Fajardo called the illegal alien issue “a red herring,” and Justice Department officials said that same approach was tried unsuccessfully by the City of Los Angeles in fighting a similar discrimination lawsuit filed in 1985.

“In the L.A. city case, their defense was that they couldn’t create a voting-age-majority Hispanic district,” Weaver said. “They could and they did. That’s why we dropped the suit.”

In settling their case with the federal government, city officials agreed to create a new Latino district and, presently, two Latinos are on the 15-member council.

The county is expected to file its legal response to the Justice Department lawsuit today, Clinton said, and it is expected to reiterate the position that the supervisors did not discriminate against Latinos when they voted on the present set of district boundaries in 1981.

County supervisors also argue that they should be allowed to wait until after the 1990 census to revise district boundaries, but the Justice Department and the Latino plaintiffs want the process completed before the next local election.

Meanwhile, the image of the nation’s largest county as defendants in a voting rights case remains a disquieting one for some supervisors, such as Ed Edelman.

A liberal Democrat who has long championed civil rights causes, Edelman’s district includes the largest number of Latinos, many of whom are angry at the county.

“I don’t like it but that’s where we are. . . . We can always try to work something out outside the court, certainly I’m going to look at that as a possibility,” said Edelman, who will become chairman in December and lead the board at a time when the case may go to court.

Four Votes Needed

Presently, Edelman and board Chairman Deane Dana have expressed a willingness to redraw the district lines. Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who has pushed for expanding the board from its present five members, also favors such a move.

But with four votes needed to reapportion districts, either Supervisor Pete Schabarum or Mike Antonovich would have to agree to a new plan, and both have taken a stance against any settlement proposal.

“I’m not prepared to do that because we don’t have the facts at the present to make that decision,” said Schabarum, adding that supervisors are still awaiting population statistics from the Rose Institute in Claremont.