U.S. Seeks Details of Board’s Private Redistricting Talks

The U.S. Justice Department is seeking to open up the private conversations of Los Angeles County supervisors on reapportionment in an extraordinary request that could provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes political dealings of the county board.

A federal magistrate on Friday will consider the Justice Department request, which county attorneys oppose as an “unwarranted invasion of the thought processes” of the supervisors. County lawyers also have invoked what an opposing attorney said is the equivalent of former President Richard M. Nixon’s assertion of “executive privilege” in refusing to release the Watergate tapes.

The Justice Department is particularly interested in a 1981 closed-door meeting attended by all five supervisors, “but never more than two at a time,” to discuss redistricting and possibly expanding the board. The two-at-a-time meeting, apparently held in this matter in an attempt to avoid violating the state’s open meetings law, was held in a room behind the supervisors’ chambers as the board was discussing the redistricting plan in public session, court papers say.

Public Kept in Dark

“Board members entered, left and reentered the nonpublic meeting on a continuous basis,” say court papers. “Members of the public were not told any details of this meeting.”

It is not known whether there are taped or written records of the supervisors’ conversations. At the very least, the plaintiffs want county officials to testify to their recollections of private talks leading up to adoption of the 1981 redistricting plan.

The dispute over the conversations is a dramatic development in a federal lawsuit accusing the supervisors of discriminating against Latinos by drawing their districts in such a way as to preclude the election of a Latino to the five-member board.

Latino Vote Diluted

The suit contends that the board diluted the strength of Latino voters by dividing Latino neighborhoods among three supervisorial districts. The American Civil Liberties Union and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund have a similar suit pending against the county.

The private conversations are critical to the case, attorneys for the plaintiffs say, because they could show whether supervisors sought to deny Latinos political representation in order to preserve their political bases.

Under the state’s open meetings law, known as the Brown Act, a majority of a local government’s board cannot act on public business behind closed doors except to discuss litigation and personnel matters.

“The purpose of the Brown Act is to encourage the legislative bodies of this state to conduct the public’s business in public,” Douglas Mirell, a private attorney working with the ACLU and MALDEF, said in an interview Wednesday. “According to depositions taken so far, that is not what occurred, and that back room deals were made, and information was provided in a surreptitious, non-public fashion.”

No Accusations

The Justice Department did not directly accuse the supervisors of violating the Brown Act, and a department attorney declined to comment Wednesday. But the department’s court papers included a footnote saying: “California’s legislators are subject to criminal penalties if they attend a meeting held in violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meetings law, where action is taken.”

Senior Assistant County Counsel Mary Wawro said in an interview that the board did not violate the Brown Act because fewer than three members were present at the meeting, and no action was taken.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Ed Edelman, who was also board chairman in 1981, said Wednesday that he did not recall the private meeting. He declined comment on the lawsuit.

The Justice Department learned about the private meeting while taking a deposition from an employee in the supervisors’ executive office. The employee, on the advice of county attorneys, refused to answer questions regarding discussions in the private meeting. That, in turn, prompted the department to file its motion seeking a court order to require disclosure of private conversations.

An attorney for the ACLU and MALDEF said that if the groups are successful in obtaining a court order to compel county officials to testify to their recollections of private conversations, they will seek to require the county to turn over thousands of pages of documents which the county has classified as “privileged.”

‘Chilling Effect’

“Political districting schemes which dilute the voting strength of racial or ethnic minorities strike at the heart of our democracy,” says the Justice Department papers.

County attorneys contend that disclosure of private conversations of supervisors and their deputies would have a “chilling effect” on government operations.

“Disclosure of this information would seriously impair and curtail creative debate and candid consideration of alternatives and as such, is clearly not in the public interest,” the county said in its response.

The county has invoked a “deliberative process privilege,” which county attorneys say protects a legislator from revealing his private conversations on an issue much in the way a lawyer is protected from disclosing his discussions with a client.

“In simple terms, that is the principle which says that the internal thoughts of a legislator and the conversations the legislator has when he is trying to arrive at a decision on a piece of legislation are private,” said Wawro. “It’s in the public interest that those should be private. It encourages the legislator to consider many, many things.”

The redistricting case is expected to go to trial in November.