1st District Rivals Hope Election Will Stand : Supervisors: Sarah Flores will ask judge not to throw out results. Gregory O’Brien, her opponent in the November runoff, also will attend hearing.

Instead of walking precincts today, rivals in the runoff for Los Angeles County’s 1st District supervisorial seat will be sitting in a federal courtroom hoping that a judge will not throw out Tuesday’s election results.

Sarah Flores, seeking to become the first Latino on the Board of Supervisors, said Wednesday that she will petition U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon to allow her to argue that the election results should be allowed to stand. Her opponent in the November runoff, Superior Court Judge Gregory O’Brien, also plans to attend, but only as an observer.

County lawyers plan to argue that Flores’ first-place finish in a 10-candidate race is evidence that a Latino has a shot at winning a seat on the five-member board.

“If I were arguing the county’s case, that is an argument I would put forward,” O’Brien said.

The outcome of the election was clouded by an election-eve decision invalidating the county’s district lines. Ironically, Kenyon ruled that the all-Anglo supervisors in 1981 drew political boundaries that were designed to keep Latinos off the board. The county plans to appeal the decision.

In the race to succeed retiring Supervisor Pete Schabarum in the 1st District, Flores finished with 34.69% of the vote. Next was the Schabarum-backed O’Brien, who received 20.1%, followed by Bob Bartlett, mayor of Monrovia, with 11.7%, and former Congressman Jim Lloyd with 9.7%. Other candidates were back in the pack.

In the 3rd District race, Supervisor Ed Edelman easily defeated his lone challenger, Gonzalo Molina.

The plaintiffs in the redistricting suit--the U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups--want the results of both elections thrown out and a special election held under a new redistricting plan. Judge Kenyon scheduled a hearing on the matter for today.

Flores and O’Brien were not waiting for the outcome of the hearing.

The candidates, who live eight doors apart in Glendora, were on the phone early Wednesday seeking the endorsements of the also-rans in the race.

Though she had never run for political office, Flores, 52, assistant chief deputy to Schabarum, put together a sophisticated political operation, with help from Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana.

The two supervisors saw in Flores an opportunity to settle the redistricting lawsuit and hold on to conservative control of the board. Flores is a Republican. Antonovich and Dana steered campaign contributors Flores’ way, helping her to become the top fund-raiser with nearly $400,000.

Flores also hired Ron Smith, a veteran political consultant who engineered the then-unknown Dana’s 1980 election to the board. Smith oversaw Flores’ public appearances, while Allan Hoffenblum, another veteran political consultant, directed her aggressive mail campaign.

Some losing candidates said Flores, who has worked for Schabarum for 18 years, benefited from her boss’ decision to endorse O’Brien.

“Pete helped Sarah by insulting her,” said Pomona Councilwoman Nell Soto, who finished fifth. “It got her sympathy.”

Smith said, “She won the election because she knows the community like no one else.”

At Flores’ campaign office, volunteers answered the phone “Sarah Flores Victory Headquarters.” Said Flores, “We can’t just sit and rest; the fight has not ended.”

She said she did not believe the redistricting suit would hamper her ability to raise money. “I was able to be the front-runner by raising the money that I did--but that was always with the decision hanging over us.”

O’Brien, 44, who serves as a judge in Pomona, received an early-morning call Wednesday from Schabarum offering political advice. “He told me don’t sit back on your laurels,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien expressed doubt that the judge would throw out the results. “Judge Kenyon had the obvious opportunity to enjoin the registrar from counting the votes if he were terribly interested in that approach as a remedy,” O’Brien said.

Latinos represent one-third of the county’s population, but no Latino has ever been elected to the powerful five-member board. The plaintiffs have contended that even if a Latino wins in the existing districts, it does not resolve the issues that prompted the case, notably that Latinos are denied an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice to the board.

“We want a district drawn around an entire community, not the community split in half,” said Richard Larson, legal director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit alleged that the supervisors deliberately split Latino neighborhoods in East Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley among the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts to dilute Latino voting strength.

Times staff writers Dean Murphy and Amy Pyle contributed to this story.