Redistricting Plan of ’81 Is Defended by Edelman : Politics: He testifies that creating one Latino district would have diluted Latinos’ influence. Critics charge the supervisor was just trying to save his seat.

Taking the stand in a historic voting-rights trial, Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman testified Monday that he opposed a plan to increase the Latino population in his district because it would have weakened Latino influence over the other supervisors.

“It was important to have minorities not lumped into one or two districts but have influence in other districts,” Edelman said.

But an ACLU attorney charged afterward that Edelman was seeking to protect his seat during the supervisors’ 1981 redistricting.

Edelman was the first supervisor to testify in federal court on a lawsuit accusing the county board of splitting most of the county’s 2 million Latinos among three districts, thereby weakening their political clout in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Supervisor Pete Schabarum is scheduled to take the stand today, followed by Supervisors Mike Antonovich, Deane Dana and Kenneth Hahn later this week.

The plaintiffs, the U.S. Justice Department, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, contend that the three conservative and two liberal supervisors treated Latinos during the remapping as “pawns” in a power struggle for control of the board.

The plaintiffs are seeking to consolidate the Latino population into a single district, from which a Latino would have an improved chance to win a seat on the board. The ACLU and MALDEF also have asked the court to consider expanding the board.

During two hours of testimony, the liberal Edelman said he opposed a plan that would have put more Latinos in his district by taking them from Schabarum’s. That plan was backed by the board’s three conservatives--Schabarum, Antonovich and Dana.

In opposing the plan, Edelman testified, he was merely advocating the same position as that taken by a Latino political group, Californios for Fair Representation.

“They objected to lumping all of the Hispanics into one district,” he said.

Edelman said the Latino group’s goal was “to create two districts with political influence.” The supervisor testified that he did not support an alternative plan proposed by Californios that would have increased the Latino population in his and Schabarum’s districts because he did not believe it could have gotten the four votes required for approval.

There “was not the opportunity to get four votes, let alone three votes or two votes--that was not the political reality at that time,” he said.

Edelman testified that he had no recollection of the nature of the discussions that took place in a closed-door meeting before adoption of the 1981 redistricting plan. The meeting, which took place during a public session, was attended by two supervisors at a time. This was an apparent effort to circumvent a state law requiring that discussions involving three or more supervisors be conducted in public, according to the plaintiffs.

Asked by ACLU attorney Mark Rosenbaum if he believed the meeting violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the state law, Edelman said simply, “No.” On the advice of county attorneys, Edelman later declined to talk to reporters about his testimony.

Outside the courthouse, Rosenbaum said Edelman’s testimony “demonstrates that neither side (conservative or liberal supervisors) felt it was in their political interests to increase Hispanic influence.”

Rosenbaum noted that Edelman as a city councilman in 1971 pushed to consolidate the Latino population in another councilman’s district but resisted a similar effort in 1981 affecting his own district.

Rosenbaum also complained that Edelman “told only half the story.”

While Californios for Fair Representation in 1981 opposed placing most of the Latinos in Edelman’s district, Rosenbaum said, “they were equally adamant that they didn’t want the status quo.”

Ultimately, the supervisors adopted a plan with few changes.

The county has maintained that a majority Latino district could not have been created based solely on 1980 census material, which it claims is the only data the government is obligated to use.