Edelman Would Lose Ground in Federal Redistricting Proposal

A redistricting plan designed to help a Latino win election to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors by carving up a district now largely represented by veteran Supervisor Ed Edelman was presented to a federal judge this week by the Justice Department.

Under the plan, Edelman’s strongest base of political support, including his home on the Westside, would be placed in Supervisor Deane Dana’s district. That would leave the liberal Edelman with the choice of running against a colleague in a traditionally conservative coastal district or moving to the new district, where he could face an equally strong Latino challenge.

The new predominantly Latino district--bearing the designation of Edelman’s 3rd District--would stretch from El Sereno and Lincoln Heights through downtown Los Angeles east to El Monte and San Gabriel and southeast to Montebello and Pico Rivera.

The Justice Department has filed suit accusing the supervisors of drawing their districts in such a way as to weaken the political clout of the county’s 2 million Latinos. The suit contends that the board fragmented Latino neighborhoods among three districts in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The map presented this week is the first comprehensive alternative realignment of district boundaries made public since the suit was filed last year.

“We present this plan solely for illustrative purposes,” the Justice Department said in court papers. The map was drawn to refute the county’s claim, subject of a court hearing Thursday, that a Latino-majority district could not have been created during the board’s 1981 reapportionment, and therefore, the case should be dismissed.

County attorneys have asked U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon to throw out the suit, citing a Supreme Court ruling that there cannot be a violation of the voting rights law unless a district composed of a majority of minority voters can be created.

The county has pointed out that while Latinos made up nearly 28% of the county’s population in the 1980 Census, only 12% were eligible to vote because large numbers were under voting age or not citizens.

“We agree that to prevail we must show that Hispanic citizens would have the potential to elect a supervisor of their choice,” the Justice Department said in the court papers filed last week. “To demonstrate that potential, we present an alternate redistricting plan.

“By offering the plan, we do not intend to suggest that it is the plan the county should have or must now adopt,” the Justice Department said. “The county is free to make the essentially political decisions about redistricting as long as the resulting plan does not dilute minority voting strength or otherwise violate federal law.”

Under the alternative plan, Edelman’s 3rd District, which now runs from heavily Latino East Los Angeles to affluent Bel-Air and includes portions of the San Fernando Valley, would move roughly east of the Harbor Freeway and no longer include any part of the Valley or West Side.

The new, crab-shaped 3rd District would be southeast of downtown Los Angeles with one claw-like piece extending into El Sereno, Lincoln Heights and Highland Park and another reaching out into Baldwin Park and El Monte. The new district would be nearly 71% Latino, compared with an estimated 47% in its current boundaries, according to the Justice Department.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn’s heavily black South-Central Los Angeles district is largely unchanged by the Justice Department map. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents most of the San Fernando Valley, would pick up the remainder from Edelman. Supervisor Pete Schabarum would gain territory in the San Gabriel Valley from Antonovich while giving up heavily Latino tracts to the new Latino 3rd District under the plan.

An aide to Edelman said the supervisor was home Friday suffering from a flu-like virus and would not comment on the plan until he could review it.

Senior Assistant County Counsel Mary Wawro said the proposed Latino district still has less than a majority of eligible Latino voters based on the 1980 Census. The county claims that it is only required by law to use 1980 Census figures, not estimates of the current Latino population.

In court papers filed late Friday in response to the Justice Department map, the county said: “The truth is finally out. Just as the county advised the court back in January, one cannot create a majority Hispanic voting-age citizenship district on the basis of 1980 Census data.”