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Edelman Put in Latino District by Board Plan

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TIMES STAFF WRITERS

A sharply divided Board of Supervisors on Wednesday submitted to a federal judge a redistricting plan that would change the political representation for many of Los Angeles County’s 8 1/2 million residents and force Supervisor Ed Edelman to run in a new, heavily Latino district.

Meeting behind closed doors, the supervisors adopted the plan hours before a deadline imposed by a federal judge who ruled that the existing supervisorial district boundaries discriminate against Latinos.

The map was rushed by a law clerk to the U.S. Courthouse and delivered to the judge only 25 minutes before the court’s 5 p.m. closing time.

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If approved by the judge, the plan would expose Edelman, a 16-year board veteran, to a strong challenge from a Latino.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon has scheduled a July 5 hearing to decide whether to accept the plan. He has said if the plan fails to correct violations of the federal Voting Rights Act, he will redraw district lines himself after consulting with the plaintiffs in the case.

After the 3-2 vote, Edelman angrily denounced the plan as a partisan ploy by conservative supervisors to maintain their control of the board. He predicted that the plan will be rejected by the judge and the plaintiffs in the case.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs--the U.S. Justice Department, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund--said they would have no comment until they review the map.

MALDEF plans to submit its own map to the judge by the July 5 hearing, but officials declined to reveal details.

Supervisor Deane Dana, who crafted the board’s redistricting plan, admitted that his goal was to maintain conservative control of the board.

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“That’s the name of the game--politics,” Dana said. The vote was strictly along ideological lines with Dana and fellow conservatives Mike Antonovich and Pete Schabarum outvoting liberals Kenneth Hahn and Edelman.

Kenyon earlier this month ruled that the five Anglo supervisors intentionally discriminated against the county’s 3 million Latinos by drawing district boundaries in 1981 in a way that diluted their voting strength. The supervisors, who have spent $4 million fighting the 1988 lawsuit, are appealing the ruling.

In Wednesday’s secret session, the supervisors also voted 3 to 2 to spend another $500,000 to hire a private law firm to separately pursue an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary. The action authorizes Schabarum, though he is retiring, to personally carry on an appeal, even if his successor or any other new supervisor votes to drop the county’s appeal, said county attorneys.

“It was a way to guarantee that no matter what happens on the board there would be an appeal,” said Edelman, who voted against the expenditure.

Under the plan adopted Wednesday, a new 74% Latino district, bearing the designation of Edelman’s 3rd District, would stretch from downtown Los Angeles east to El Monte and Rosemead and southeast to Montebello and Pico Rivera. It would contain two thin fingers, one extending to Edelman’s home on the Westside and another running out to the heavily Latino city of San Fernando.

Latinos account for 45.5% of the registered voters of the new 3rd District, according to county figures. Democrats outnumber Republicans 68% to 22%.

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Edelman would lose a large part of the Westside that has formed his political base.

Hahn’s low-income South-Central Los Angeles district would pick up affluent Beverly Hills and Hollywood from Edelman. Antonovich, who now represents much of the San Fernando Valley, would pick up more from Edelman.

Dana said his coastal district would stretch into the San Fernando Valley for the first time, picking up Agoura Hills and Westlake Village from Antonovich. Schabarum’s 1st District also would take in portions of the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys for the first time, according to Dana’s office.

At a packed news conference in his Hall of Administration office, Edelman, whose existing district is 47% Latino, said he believes he could win reelection in the new Latino district. Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina and Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente) have expressed interest in running for supervisor in a new Latino district.

Edelman has hired his own redistricting attorney but would not say whether he plans legal action.

“This is not the time for political gerrymandering,” Edelman said with Hahn at his side. “It’s patently unfair. . . .”

“I’m not sure the NAACP is going to look kindly at this because black voting rights would be diluted,” Edelman said.

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Hahn, however, said he was assured by county lawyers that the plan does not violate the voting rights of black voters in his South-Central Los Angeles district.

Theodore M. Shaw, attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, an intervenor in the voting rights lawsuit, said he had not seen the map and could not comment.

Placing a Latino majority in a district with an incumbent makes it more difficult for the first Latino to win a seat on the board, Edelman said. He said the Latino majority should have been placed in the 1st District, where Schabarum’s seat is being vacated.

Though the plaintiffs offered no comment, Alan Clayton, civil rights representative for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said, “They’re making it tough for a Hispanic to win by having an incumbent who is extremely well financed.”

Dana contended that the plan could lead to the election of two Latinos to the five-member board, one from Edelman’s district and the other from Schabarum’s district, where Sarah Flores, a Latino, is a leading candidate.

Edelman, who first saw the plan Tuesday morning, met privately with Schabarum late Tuesday night in an unsuccessful try to persuade him to support expansion of the board as an alternative. Edelman in the closed-door meeting Wednesday proposed expansion--an idea favored by the judge, the ACLU and MALDEF--but his motion was defeated by the conservative majority.

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Schabarum was unavailable, but his office issued a statement decrying the redistricting as “very unsatisfactory, done only in response to an extraordinarily biased and arbitrary request of the court.

“I find the lines of the district disgraceful, but what do you do, given the requirement of the judge to come up with a district with equal population that has a majority of voting-age Hispanic citizens,” Schabarum said.

Kenyon may decide at the July 5 hearing whether to grant the plaintiffs’ request to cancel a November runoff between Flores and Greg O’Brien in the 1st District and call a November election in the new districts.

Flores had not seen the map by late Wednesday but said, “Whatever it is, I’m still going to run, and I know I’m still going to win. . . . I’m glad that most of the San Gabriel Valley was kept in place.”

O’Brien, who traveled from his Glendora home to Schabarum’s office to look at the map, said, “I was prepared for something of less than artistic merit, but this beats all. This is the wildest looking district that I have ever seen. I think it’s an embarrassment to democracy.”

As Edelman’s press conference drew to a close, Hahn, who picked up Beverly Hills in the remapping, turned to his liberal friend and said, “Ed, would you tell your folks in Beverly Hills I’m a good guy?”

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REDISTRICTING PLAN

The current district boundaries and the new boundaries proposed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Above: These boundaries drawn in 1981 by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors were declared illegal recently by a federal judge who concluded that the apportionment scheme discriminates against Latinos. Below: The Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved this remapping plan that places 3rd District Supervisor Ed Edelman in a predominantly Latino district. The plan was submitted to a federal judge for consideration.

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