Board Votes to Shift Schabarum in Redistricting

A bitterly divided Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 in closed session Tuesday to present to a federal judge a redistricting plan that would force veteran Supervisor Pete Schabarum to run in a new, predominantly Latino district.

The plan, virtually identical to one made public last week, will be submitted in U.S. District Court today as a possible settlement of a lawsuit accusing the supervisors of drawing their districts in a way to preclude the election of a Latino to the board.

Both sides in the redistricting case have agreed to keep their talks secret and have declined to comment on prospects for a settlement.

After a two-hour private board meeting, Schabarum broke the silence and blasted fellow Republican Supervisor Deane Dana for casting the deciding vote to submit the plan.

Schabarum vowed to contact GOP leaders throughout the state, urging them to pressure Dana in the coming weeks to withdraw his support for the plan.

“I’m going to tell them that we have a guy who has forgot who got him elected,” said Schabarum, who along with other Republicans helped Dana win a seat on the board in 1980.

“Knowing Deane, I’m not surprised” that he voted with liberals Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn for the plan, Schabarum said. “I’ll make sure the Republican Party knows” what he has done.

Dana, who privately helped to draw up the map, defended his vote as a “good faith effort . . . to resolve this conflict” and added: “I’m far closer to the party than he is.”

He said the proposed plan makes it possible for Republicans to capture four of the five seats on the board. Although the board officially is nonpartisan, board members often align along party lines.

Under the proposed plan, Schabarum would be placed in a new 1st District with a 63% Latino population extending from East Los Angeles through growing immigrant neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley.

Based on 1988 figures, Latinos account for 36.5% of the registered voters in the proposed district. And Democrats outnumber Republicans, 62% to 38%.

The plan would radically change the political representation for hundreds of thousands of county residents. It would, for example, shift much of the northern half of the San Gabriel Valley to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who would lose a large part of the San Fernando Valley to Edelman. Edelman also would pick up Malibu from Dana.

In all, 14 San Gabriel Valley communities--many of which form the base of Schabarum’s political strength--would be cut out of Schabarum’s current 1st District and dispersed primarily to Antonovich’s 5th District and Dana’s 4th District. Hahn’s heavily black South-Central Los Angeles district would pick up Compton from Dana’s district.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union, plaintiffs in the case, declined comment Tuesday. Attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department could not be reached.

The lawsuit alleges that the board split Latino neighborhoods among three districts, thereby diluting the power of many of the county’s 2 million Latinos, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

The suit was scheduled to go to trial earlier this month when the supervisors, in a dramatic turnaround, voted to explore a settlement in response to a request from U.S. District Court Judge David V. Kenyon. Last week, board members began reviewing a map drawn up by Joseph Shumate, a San Francisco political consultant hired by the supervisors. It was revised during the last week with the assistance of UCLA demographer William Clark.

An alternate redistricting proposal has been drafted by the Justice Department. It would place Edelman in a new district with a Latino majority, but also could create political problems for Dana by adding liberal Westside neighborhoods to his coastal district.

Held Office Since ’72

Schabarum, a supervisor since 1972, said he was not sure he could win in the new district, but added that it will not have any bearing on his decision on whether to run in June. Schabarum last week said that running in a largely Latino district would pose no problem, “being a Hispanic such as I am.” He said that his paternal grandmother was Mexican.

Dana said the new district is “certainly winnable” for the well-financed Schabarum, especially if he runs in June before any formidable Latino challenger could organize.

Schabarum said the supervisors who voted in favor of the plan “were scared to death” that the outcome of a trial was going “to jeopardize their districts.”

If the proposed remapping is accepted by plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the supervisors would get a map that serves their own interests. Republican Dana gives up Democratic pockets in Compton and Malibu to Democrats Hahn and Edelman respectively. Antonovich picks up wealthy Republican communities in the San Gabriel foothills.

“Antonovich is the one who really came out with the best district, a very high Republican district,” Dana said.

Dawson Oppenheimer, a spokesman for Antonovich said, “It would appear that three members of the board targeted Pete (Schabarum).”

Oppenheimer said Antonovich voted against the proposal because he believes Schabarum has done a good job representing his current constituents. In addition, Antonovich has said that he opposes settlement talks because the county may wind up paying attorneys fees to MALDEF and the ACLU.

Schabarum said “communities of interest and historical boundaries have been completely forgotten” in the proposed plan.

The supervisor also complained that the issue has been decided “behind closed doors, with no community comment,” according to Judy Hammond, a Schabarum aide.

The combative Schabarum has increasingly found himself isolated from his two fellow conservative supervisors.

A majority of the board has resisted a proposal to expand the board, from five to seven members, as one way to settle the lawsuit. The proposal, which would allow for election of a Latino without jeopardizing an incumbent, has been rejected twice at the ballot box.