Latino Leader Says County Faces Pressure to Redistrict

The success of a historic voting rights lawsuit in Los Angeles County has placed local government officials under the gun to consider redistricting plans in Ventura County, a Latino rights advocate said in Ventura on Saturday.

“Every county is now vulnerable to these kind of lawsuits,” Richard Martinez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, told a group of about 50 local Latino politicians and activists.

On Friday, a federal judge approved a reapportionment plan for the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, which Martinez said sets an important precedent and opens a window of opportunity for Latinos in Ventura County.

The plan is designed to help the first Latino win a seat on the powerful board.

“For counties like Ventura this means that for redistricting in 1991 they are going to be under the gun,” he said.

Although no voting rights lawsuit has been filed in Ventura County, Martinez, whose agency oversees voter registration efforts in 13 western states, said it is only a matter of time.

“The issue is who will exercise the political leadership of the Latino community,” he said.

Martinez was the keynote speaker at Ventura College for the “Latino Political Empowerment Voter Registration and Redistricting Conference.” The conference was attended by Latino council members, city officials and congressional candidates from Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The conference--the first of its kind in Ventura County--was part of a statewide effort by a coalition of organizations to increase Latino political participation.

It was sponsored by organizations such as Latinos for Fair Representation, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Assn. of Latino Elected Officials.

Martinez criticized at-large elections in cities such as Oxnard, where more than half of the population is Latino but only three Latinos have ever been elected to the City Council. One Latino, Manuel Lopez, sits on the five-member council now.

Martinez said 27% of California’s population is Latino, yet only 5% of all the state’s elected politicians in federal, state and local offices are Latino.

Martinez said he foresees a voting rights lawsuit in Ventura County initially targeting a small school district where boundaries dilute the voting power of minorities.

The success of such a suit could pressure larger government agencies, such as the county, to voluntarily consider redistricting, he said.

He pointed out that Los Angeles County spent more than $3 million to fight the redistricting lawsuit. Martinez guessed that county officials working with tight budgets might be reluctant to fight such a suit.

Andres Herrera, an aide to Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn, said an immediate step toward achieving fair minority representation is increased voter registration. However, he acknowledged that getting residents to register to vote is difficult and time-consuming.

“Today is the first step in a long journey we have,” he said.

Marco Antonio Abarca, an attorney for the California Rural Legal Assistance office in Oxnard, outlined the conditions that he believes are necessary to win a redistricting lawsuit.

He said such a lawsuit will be most successful if the city, county or district has a cohesive Latino population, a geographic concentration of Latino voters and a history of ethnic discrimination.

“You have to build this evidentiary base first,” he said.

Lopez noted that Ventura County residents have one of the highest participation rates in the country for responding to the 1990 census.

He said the census results will be vital to a redistricting effort because the census will give an up-to-date record of the number of Latinos living in the area.