Slow Down and Get It Right : Appeals court puts redistricting on hold

Nobody could blame the average Los Angeles County voter and taxpayer for reacting to news that an appeals court had indefinitely put off a final resolution of the redistricting lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors with a sharp: “Enough already!”

But what a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did Thursday was not unreasonable. The judges did not throw a monkey wrench into the machinery. Instead, they slowed it to a stop so everyone can take a calm, collected look at the works and try, one more time, to reach a settlement that will finally get this mess out of the courts.

Granted, the stay order creates more work for the minority plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit. And it gives the majority bloc on the Board of Supervisors more time to fritter away taxpayers’ money on a prolonged appeal. But a hearing before the Court of Appeals, now scheduled for October, also gives both sides a chance to reconsider what has always been the most logical way out of this legal thicket: expansion of the board.

This mess started because the five white men who run county government discriminated against Latinos when they redrew their district lines in 1981. That’s on the record, and nothing the Court of Appeals or even the U.S. Supreme Court does will change that. The debate is over a remedy.

In the Los Angeles trial, U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon’s answer was to draw new lines for the five supervisorial districts and order a special primary election for November. County supervisors appealed that decision, but the Court of Appeals judges did not toss it out. They simply want to take a closer look at legal questions raised by Kenyon’s remedy.

In the meantime, they have ordered that the status quo be maintained, with no special election. That means incumbent Supervisor Pete Schabarum, whose 1st District is pivotal to the new district plans, can remain in office past the end of his term in December, when he had planned to retire.

Sadly, the ruling does hurt the leading candidate to replace Schabarum, his former aide Sarah Flores, who got the most votes in the primary election held last June. But it will also spare Flores further confusion and needless expense in running for an office that may not even exist once the redistricting case is finished. And if Schabarum chooses, he can retire a statesman and let Gov. George Deukmejian appoint Flores his interim successor. Nobody really expects that, but Schabarum can be surprising.

And the plaintiffs should ask the Court of Appeals to consider a remedy that Judge Kenyon did not--expanding the county board to assure better representation, not just for the Latino community but all county residents. Even the remaining members of the board would benefit from such a reasonable solution. They could keep their seats, give the fast-growing Latino and Asian communities a chance for a voice on the board and give every voter in the biggest, most diverse county in the nation a government more responsive to the people.