You Bored With the Supervisors? : The Judge Is Right and Most Angelenos Know It

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon has given the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors until June 27 to revise the district lines they drew in 1981, when they illegally conspired to disenfranchise the county’s 2 million Latinos.

Good sense and a decent respect for their sworn obligation to the Constitution would dictate that the supervisors comply. Unfortunately, in this affair the board’s majority--Supervisors Kenneth Hahn and Edmund D. Edelman dissenting--has so far given scant evidence of either quality. It is never too late, however, to do the right thing--especially since the consequences of not doing so are clear.

June 27 “is, quite respectfully, a deadline,” Kenyon told the board’s attorney Thursday, when he made his ruling. For all his tact, Kenyon is understandably out of patience with the obstinate majority on the five-member board. That obstinacy is nowhere more apparent than in the majority’s insistence on pursuing an appeal that is both costly and legally without merit. As Kenyon admonished the board, failure to present a legally acceptable plan will force him to draw the new lines himself.

That would be unfortunate, for, as the city of Los Angeles’ recent experience has demonstrated, the public’s battered confidence in local government is enhanced when it sees elected officials putting their own house in order. On a more utilitarian level, it also is clear that the redistricting plan the supervisors devised in 1981 was not simply one that perpetuated a system that has denied Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans representation on the board for 115 years, but one that virtually guarantees an inefficient, unaccountable county government.

A five-member board cannot adequately govern a county whose population of 8.5 million is larger than those of 42 states. In this case, then, the path to equal opportunity for the minority is also the path to responsible, responsive government for all. That means a plan that expands the board to seven or more seats, and whether that scheme is drawn by the board or by Judge Kenyon, that is what the people of Los Angeles County have a right to expect.

Still unresolved is the question of whether Kenyon will overturn the results of last Tuesday’s election in the 1st District, where the top vote-getter was, in fact, a Latina, Sarah Flores. It is difficult not to sympathize with her predicament and that of her run-off opponent, Judge Gregory O’Brien, who is himself in favor of expanding the board. But Kenyon may have to invalidate the election, as judges have in many cases involving violations of the Voting Rights Act in the South.

If that happens, it will be well to recall that this bitter disgrace was laid upon the people of Los Angeles not by a judge, but by a board majority that gives the appearance of being lost to almost any consideration but self-interest.

A Measure of Power

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors serves 8.5 million people, a population greater than those of 42 states. Some examples: L.A County Board of Supervisors: 8.5 million Alabama: 4.1 million Indiana: 5.4 million Massachusetts: 5.8 million New Jersey: 7.7 million

Source: Population Reference Bureau Inc.

1987 Estimate