Drawing a Fine Line on Amnesia

A remarkable ailment is afflicting the Los Angeles County supervisors’ side in the Voting Rights Act trial at the downtown federal courthouse.

The ailment is a form of amnesia, peculiar to witnesses friendly to the supervisors. You might call it selective amnesia. The witnesses haven’t forgotten everything. They remember their own names, occupations and other vital information. But on the witness stand, they can’t recall what happened behind closed doors in 1981 when the current supervisorial district lines were drawn.

This is a stroke of luck for supervisors. The U.S. Justice Department, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund contend that in these secretive meetings, the five county supervisors drew district lines that deliberately denied Latinos representation, violating the Voting Rights Act. The participants’ forgetfulness makes the job of the plaintiffs more difficult.

To understand what makes the memory loss so remarkable, you have to know the afflicted.

They’re all politicians. Politicians may forget their children’s graduations or their wedding anniversaries. But they never--I mean never-- forget anything about elections. Elections are their lives, and livelihoods.

Supervisor Ed Edelman is one of the amnesia victims. Ed forgets things on occasion. He’s always late for appointments. But on politics, the old memory ticks along, so this lapse was astounding.

Testifying under oath, Edelman said he couldn’t remember what was discussed at one of the most important closed door sessions in 1981.

The meeting developed like this: It’s against the law for a majority of the five-member board to meet in private. But the supervisors didn’t want to do such sensitive business in public. So, they slipped out of their weekly public session two at a time, allowing them to complete their deals and evade the law.

The plan approved by the supervisors assured Edelman’s political future. It split the majority of Latinos in the county between his 3rd District and the 1st District of Pete Schabarum. Splitting them eliminated the chance of a Latino winning and helped assure the reelections of Edelman and Schabarum. That decision, made behind closed doors, is at the heart of the suit.

At another point in the trial, episodic amnesia struck two men whose memories I’ve always admired--Ron Smith, Supervisor Deane Dana’s political adviser, and Alan Hoffenblum, who does the same sort of work for Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

If you ask these men who finished fourth in a 1972 Republican Assembly primary in the east San Gabriel Valley, they’ll tell you the candidate, the vote--and the reason for the low finish. They quote old mailers and television advertisements verbatim. They have total recall of political intelligence.

Moreover, Smith and Hoffenblum had important roles in the 1981 redistricting. They were active members of an official redistricting commission that submitted district lines to the supervisors. Each man actually proposed lines. But on the witness stand, it all was pretty much a blank. “I don’t remember the specific lines at all,” said Smith.

On Wednesday, an even more serious form of amnesia struck the man who may have had the most to tell, county official Richard Schoeni. As a top aide in the Board of Supervisors executive office, he was in the middle of drawing redistricting plans in 1981 and 1971. And, Schoeni had a motive to talk. A few years ago, he failed in a bid to have the supervisors appoint him executive officer to the board. While he’s still a county official, Schoeni isn’t in the power loop.

But Schoeni’s loyalty to the county family was stronger than his desire for revenge. He did recall some things, however. He remembered, for example, that in 1971, the supervisors put a section of Pasadena in the same 5th District as Sierra Madre: The areas shared a school district, and residents liked to shop at the same Sears.

Memory failed when he was asked about anything dealing with Latino representation. Schoeni, so authoritative on the shopping habits of Sierra Madre residents, didn’t know how many Latinos lived in El Monte or Pico Rivera.

Maybe there’s a reason for the epidemic. Strange things have been happening in Courtroom No. 3 in the federal courthouse. The microphones don’t work. The air conditioner fails. A strange buzzing sound was heard Wednesday. Could the courtroom be infested with poltergeists?

I don’t think so. The reason for the memory loss is that this trial is is a major threat to the county family. If the Justice Department wins, supervisors could lose their jobs. As a result, the story remains in the family and nobody talks.