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O.C. Could Have a Major Stake in Redistricting Fight

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Times Political Writer

Reapportionment, a 15-letter word for political trouble, is lurking around the corner of the 1990 census.

Nothing is certain in this highly emotional, extremely important decennial process aimed at evening up legislative and congressional districts. But if things go as they appear now, California will get an additional four to six seats in Congress, and at least part of one could be in Orange County, where the population has grown considerably in the last decade.

At the same time, lines for 40 state Senate and 80 Assembly districts will be redrawn to reflect California’s population shifts, primarily to the suburbs.

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Although reapportionment is still 2 years away, Republicans, including GOP leaders in Orange County, already are trying to figure out how to head off a redistricting that favors Democrats. And Democrats, who control the state Legislature, where the lines are drawn, are trying to figure out how to hold control of the mapping. Both sides will be armed with highly refined computer programs that will massage the basic building blocks for creating partisan districts: population and voter patterns.

“Reapportionment is the most difficult thing for people to understand, to realize it is possible with the use of very sophisticated computer programs to design districts to ensure an outcome before a single vote is cast,” said Assembly Minority Leader Ross Johnson (R-La Habra).

Indeed, how district lines are drawn will shape the makeup of the state Senate, Assembly and U.S. House of Representatives into the 21st Century. The party that emerges most powerful will have primary say over state and federal legislation affecting issues ranging from Social Security benefits to highway construction, air pollution and national security.

Orange County Republicans, coming from one of the strongest GOP bases in the nation, are trying to prevent the kind of redistricting that happened in 1981, when Democrats were not only in power in the Legislature but had two other advantages: a Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, to sign into law the plan fashioned by Democrats, and a state Supreme Court dominated by Brown appointees to hear appeals of lawsuits filed against the plan by Republicans.

The result was an artful gerrymander--not unlike similar geographical marvels fashioned by Republicans when they were in power in the 1950s--that withstood legal challenges even beyond the state’s courts to as august a body as the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court decided only last month that California Republicans had no legal basis to attack the plan engineered by Democrats.

Incumbents Protected

The 1981 plan was primarily the work of the late Rep. Phil Burton (D-San Francisco), whose now-famous assurance to both Democrats and Republicans anxiously awaiting the final plan was, “You’re in your mother’s hands.” The plan not only protected all Democratic incumbents but also most GOP incumbents--at the expense of a handful of Republicans whose districts were “collapsed.”

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But there was no doubt which party emerged the victor. It can be seen in this simple result: Democrats have had a lock on their majorities in both the Legislature and the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives. In Congress, for example, only one seat in the state has changed parties in 180 races in the last decade--the 38th District post won by Republican Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove in 1984 over 10-year incumbent Jerry M. Patterson, a moderate Democrat.

“In political terms, that’s the most effective gerrymander in the history of the United States,” GOP reapportionment expert Tony Quinn said. Articulating a familiar theme among Republicans that the GOP has made great strides in attracting voters, Quinn added, “The congressional delegation, in particular, defies the political behavior of the state.”

Quinn said the Burton plan accomplished this by “literally cement(ing) everybody in place. Not only are there no shifts, there are virtually no competitive races.”

“Phil Burton was, let’s say, a Democrat’s Democrat,” said Richard J. O’Neill of San Juan Capistrano, a former state Democratic Party chairman, speaking admiringly of Burton’s redistricting skills. “He hit hard and he fought hard. He didn’t take anybody’s crap. He was the most feared Democrat in California.”

Everyone for Himself

Burton also understood probably better than anyone this basic rule of redistricting: everyone for himself. There are few, if any, incumbents who are willing to be sacrificial lambs to the greater good of either party, and almost as few who would give up even a modicum of voter registration “safety” to help a colleague.

Burton, however, is dead. His partner in past redistricting, behind-the-scenes political strategist Michael Berman, brother of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Studio City), undoubtedly will have a hand in drawing the lines in 1991. House Majority Whip Tony Coelho (D-Merced) is also expected to play a strong role.

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But there is no question that, as one Democrat involved in redistricting put it, “there will be a sense that Phil’s not there to speak for us.”

More important, there is a strong possibility that Democrats will fail in their effort to recapture the governorship in 1990, which will deprive them of the third leg of power they need to push through a reapportionment plan without the help of Republicans. Combine that with a move to the right on the state Supreme Court, as Gov. George Deukmejian’s appointees have come to dominate, and the 1991 redistricting promises to at least live up to, and perhaps even surpass, earlier reapportionment battles in its bitterness and divisiveness.

While the process is highly unpredictable, there may be little change in Orange County’s district lines, although some of the lawmakers who now cross county lines into San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside or Imperial counties may find themselves pushed into one or another county.

Not Much Shifting

Quinn, who also is co-chairman of a volunteer committee within the Republican Party on reapportionment and election laws, predicted that there would not be much shifting of districts within Orange County.

“Most of the incumbents in Orange County should be in relatively good shape,” Quinn said.

There are five members of Congress, all Republicans, whose districts are wholly or partly in Orange County: Dornan, William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton, C. Christopher Cox of Newport Beach, Ron C. Packard of Carlsbad and Dana Rohrabacher of Lomita.

Of the five, Dornan’s district is the one that Democrats crafted in 1981 in the hopes of keeping at least a foothold in the county’s congressional delegation. For 10 years until 1984, the district was represented by Patterson, a Garden Grove resident. But Dornan, whose former West Los Angeles seat had been gerrymandered in the 1981 redistricting to strip him of his Republican support, eyed the district’s overwhelming support for President Reagan in the 1980 election and rightly guessed that the district had become too conservative for Patterson.

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Although the district favors registered Democrats--currently by 49% to 42%--Republicans generally vote in greater numbers and are more loyal to their party than Democrats. Dornan easily beat Patterson, and Democrats have little hope that even the most drastic of gerrymanders could round up enough voters for their party to make the district competitive again.

As a result, one Democratic reapportionment expert said, “there would be no point to destroying Dornan, no partisan interest in doing that.”

Democrats have a better shot at bringing the 72nd Assembly District back to the Democratic fold. Long represented by former Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove), who quit to run unsuccessfully against Dornan for Congress, the 72nd District has been represented by Republicans since 1986. When former Assemblyman Richard E. Longshore (R-Santa Ana) died last year, Democrats made an all-out effort to recapture the district, falling just 867 votes short of defeating Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) in a controversial $1.9-million battle whose outcome is still a matter of legal dispute.

Democrats could try to bring in areas more favorable to them in Buena Park to bolster their chances in the 72nd, O’Neill said. “All you need is a thousand more votes,” he said.

But, as Orange County Democratic leader Howard Adler said, even that possibility is in question.

“It seems to me that if Democrats are going to pick up seats, they will be looking somewhere outside Orange County to do it,” Adler said. “As a practical matter, Republicans have been winning all the marginal Democratic seats down here.”

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Two Strategies

On a broader level, state Republican leaders are now pinning their hopes on two strategies: statewide initiatives and keeping control of the governor’s office.

There are at least two initiatives being crafted by Republicans for the 1990 ballot, including one by Assembly Minority Leader Johnson that would force Democrats to follow guidelines--such as drawing compact districts that do not cross city or county lines more than a set number of times--more favorable to Republicans. Because it is generally believed that the public has little understanding of reapportionment, the reforms will probably be added to a measure that also would make major changes in the power structure in the Assembly--a more politically viable topic for voters.

The measure also would change the state Constitution since, as Republicans painfully learned, anything short of that gets caught in a quagmire in the courts over the issue of the legality of changing legislative rules by statutory initiative.

The other initiative now under discussion would take the job of redistricting away from the Legislature and give it to an independent commission.

Speaking of proposed initiatives, Kenneth L. Khachigian of San Clemente, a former speech writer for President Reagan and a close adviser to Deukmejian, said: “It will be incumbent on Republicans to raise all the hell they can. . . . If we can get the boundaries even half fair, the Republicans will pick up seats all over the place.”

Committed to Run

With Deukmejian’s decision not to seek a third term, the GOP put heavy pressure on U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson to run, which resulted in his Feb. 18 announcement to form an exploratory committee, essentially committing him to run for the post.

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Importantly, in his first speech as a gubernatorial candidate, Wilson opened the battle for reapportionment by calling for approval of the GOP’s initiatives. “We cannot permit the people of California to undergo another cynical gerrymandering that will defraud California voters for the next decade,” Wilson said.

If elected, Wilson could veto any partisan Democratic plan, which would then require a two-thirds vote to override and put the GOP in a very strong bargaining position.

“If there is a Republican governor, then I think the Legislature is out of it,” said James Tucker, chief legal counsel to Assembly Elections and Reapportionment during the 1981 redistricting. “I don’t think they can come up with a plan that gets two-thirds of both houses.”

A veto undoubtedly would throw the matter into the courts, which appointed three masters in 1971 to draw the lines when the Legislature failed to approve a plan under the same situation: a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a Republican governor--Reagan.

Orange County Congressional Districts Brea/ Fullerton/ Orange: 39 Westminster: 38 / 42 Tustin / Irvine/ Newport Beach/ Laguna Beach/: 40 San Juan Capistrano/ San Clemente: 43 Orange County Senatorial Districts Brea / Placentia: 31 Anaheim / Costa Mesa / Irvine: 35 Santa Ana: 32 Huntington Beach / Newport Beach / Laguna Beach / San Clemente / San Juan Capistrano: 37 Orange County Assembly Districts Fullerton: 64 Buena Park: 71 Yorba Linda / Orange: 67 Huntington Beach: 58 Irvine: 69 Newport Beach / Laguna Beach / Mission Viejo: 70 San Clemente: 75

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