It’s New Race for Supervisor After Judge OKs Changes in 1st District : Politics: Flores and O’Brien have primary victories invalidated by remapping. Former Schabarum aide vows to start over. But judge is hesitant. Neither lives in the redrawn district.

After countless speeches, candidates’ forums and nearly $1 million in campaign fund raising, two top contenders in the 1st Supervisorial District must start their quest all over again--or simply give it up.

As a result of Judge David V. Kenyon’s decision Friday, former supervisors’ aide Sarah Flores and Superior Court Judge Gregory O’Brien--the two top vote-getters in June’s primary election--had their victories invalidated and their opportunity for a November runoff ended.

He also approved new lines that leave both Flores and O’Brien out of the district. In ordering that new district lines be used in a new primary election on Nov. 6, Kenyon threw the race wide open. Any candidate living in the old or the new 1st District would qualify under Kenyon’s ruling.

“I will run because I’m a fighter,” said Flores, “and I will win because I’m the best qualified . . . but it won’t be easy.”

O’Brien, the conservative judge handpicked by retiring Supervisor Pete Schabarum to succeed him in the San Gabriel Valley district, said he probably will bow out of the race unless Kenyon’s decision is overturned on appeal.

However, he added: “I’m confident that good arguments can be made in court of appeals. (The decision) is on the cutting edge of the law and there is every possibility of a reversal.”

The new 1st District is very different from the one Flores and O’Brien ran in two months ago. Flores estimates that there is only a 25% overlap of voters between the two districts.

The race has already attracted the attention of every prominent Latino politician in the county, and may draw more than one into an eventual bid for the powerful and visible office. Among those who say they are interested in running are Los Angeles City Council members Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina, U.S. Reps. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) and Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), the senior Latino elected official in Los Angeles County.

These officials say they will attempt to form a united front.

“Foremost in my mind is to sit down and go through some consensus building” with other potential candidates, said Torres. “We need to avoid a blood bath, spending a lot of money and not succeed.”

Roybal said he will not make a decision until meeting with other Latino leaders in the next few days. He also said he expects polls to be quickly conducted, as well as assessments of the relative strength of the various potential candidates.

“If that opportunity is presented, I may be intertested,” he said.

Alatorre also stressed unity but said that he anticipates that he will be the candidate.

Whoever finally emerges will have to quickly raise an estimated $500,000 war chest--a process that Flores and O’Brien already have underway.

Eric Rose, a campaign consultant to Flores, said his candidate has six fund-raising events scheduled for the next several weeks. Flores raised and spent more than $400,000 for the June primary election. The upcoming race is expected to be just as expensive, if not more so, according to Rose and other campaign consultants and potential candidates.

Flores also needs money to continue her own litigation. She is now appealing Kenyon’s ruling on grounds that she should have been allowed to enter the case as an intervenor.

But there are other costs to the now invalid race.

Both Flores and O’Brien have given up their regular incomes to run for office.

Flores resigned her $63,506-a-year position as an aide to Schabarum, and O’Brien took an unpaid leave of absence from his $89,000-a-year position on the Superior Court bench. Both said running once and having to start from scratch is a great sacrifice.

“My life has never been easy and this has not been an easy race,” said Flores. “If it’s a new district with new candidates, well, we’ll just start all over again.”

But O’Brien on Friday said wearily, “I’d like to get it over with.”