L.A. County Redistricting Put on Hold

The fact that the fight over fair representation on the Board of Supervisors represented “politics at its most arrogant” was about the only correct statement in Ronald B. Turovsky’s analysis (“Drawn and Quartered, but Still Looking Out for No. 1,” Commentary, Aug. 6).

U.S. District Judge David Kenyon, working hand-in-hand with MALDEF and the ACLU, did indeed carve out a district shaped like a donkey in a blatantly political effort to create a liberal Democratic district for City Councilwoman Gloria Molina. It is not a coincidence that Molina, a member of the MALDEF board, wants to run for the County Board of Supervisors.

The fact that Judge Kenyon would deny the people a voice in the drafting of new lines and the fact that Sarah Flores, a Latina Republican, was the odds-on favorite to win a board seat in November, underlines the real Kenyon-MALDEF-ACLU agenda: the creation of a tailor-made district for an ultra-liberal candidate.

That is politics at its most crass.

Neither The Times nor Turovsky bothered to note that a liberal Democrat majority dominated the Board of Supervisors in the 1970s. Nor have you noted that, with no change in district lines, the balance of power was changed by the people in 1980--a year before the latest reapportionment. The 1981 redistricting process, incidentally, was a minor movement of boundary lines to accommodate the change in population as required by law.

When Turovsky refers to the current board’s interest in self-preservation, he fails to note that Kenyon’s proposal creates a plan in which all incumbents (Kenneth Hahn, Ed Edelman, Deane Dana and myself) remain as residents.

Interestingly enough, the judge retained a 3rd District for Edelman, who won his race in the same June primary that saw Sarah Flores emerge as the leader in the 1st District. But the judge created a new 1st District in which Molina is a resident and Flores’ residence is excluded.

He “generously” ruled that Flores may continue her candidacy as long as she is willing to sell her home and leave her community in the event of her election.

The district lines that were drawn in 1981 did not discriminate against any group because of ethnicity, and all members of our board have so testified.

Failure by the Board of Supervisors to appeal Kenyon’s tyrannical rulings would be an arrogant disservice to all of the people of Los Angeles County.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor, 5th District