L.A. County Redistricting Put on Hold

I am outraged at the events surrounding the court-ordered county redistricting. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are representing Latinos and the supervisors are defending themselves, but who is representing me, a member of neither group. The arguments of both the court and the plaintiffs are just arrogant hypocrisy.

One claim is that the district lines have been gerrymandered so that a Latino cannot be elected as a supervisor (the almost certain election of Sarah Flores disproves this) and their solution is to re-gerrymander the district lines so that success is guaranteed. This is justice?

If MALDEF and the ACLU claim that a white supervisor cannot represent Latinos, then by their own argument, how can a Latino represent whites? Since Pete Schabarum is a lame-duck supervisor, ready to retire, there is no one currently representing the 1st District.

Now the court has postponed elections indefinitely in the interests of protecting voting rights (Part B, Aug. 10). In reality, they have just stripped all the citizens of the 1st District of their voting rights. Perhaps the next step for MALDEF, the ACLU and the courts is for them to pick the next supervisor instead of the voters.

MARTIN J. BATISTELLI

Hacienda Heights