FACT WATCH : Odd Slant on Latinos

The redistricting lawsuit Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors lost last week is complex, and to fully understand its significance you must know some of the history of anti-Mexican discrimination hereabouts. Ignorance of that history accounts for the simplistic analysis being done by otherwise reliable news organizations in the East.

Recently, for example, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page criticized the lawsuit, hitting at the “liberals” who filed it for pressing forward despite the fact a Latina, Sarah Flores, might get elected to the board in November’s election. Their conclusion: local “liberals” are afraid of Flores, a “conservative” Republican.

Well, L.A. politics isn’t so simple. As anyone who knows her can tell you, Flores is no knee-jerk ideologue. Like most Mexican-American Republicans, she’s “conservative” on some issues, “liberal” on others. And her supporters in the Latino community reflect that subtle reality, including Chicanos who’ve also supported politicos that conservatives love to hate, like Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

In fact, the lawsuit against the supervisors has less to do with liberal versus conservative than it does with good versus bad government. If pundits who watch from afar would take a closer, less ideological, look at the redistricting case, they’d be supporting the plan put forward by the victorious plaintiffs, to expand the county board so that not just one Sarah Flores can be elected, but several.