In Apportioning Districts, Every Head Ought to Count : Redistricting: The old guard is fighting tooth and nail to keep Latinos out--even using ancient, discredited arguments to keep non-citizens from being counted.

Los Angeles County has lost a court battle to retain its gerrymandered supervisorial districts. It should come as no surprise, then, to see supporters of the ancien regime begin to argue--outside of court--that the creation of a proposed new supervisorial district, intended to remedy discrimination against the county’s Latino population, is unfair to the county’s population as a whole.

The arguments used by the old guard to support this position are deceptively straightforward: Because a good number of county Latinos are not yet U.S. citizens, and therefore currently ineligible to vote, the new supervisorial district may have a number of residents equal to that of the other districts, but a much smaller number of registered voters. At the heart of this argument is the proposition that the population basis for political jurisdictions should be registered voters and should not include immigrants ineligible to vote.

Yet apportionment based on total population is nothing new--it has been used consistently throughout the county’s redistricting history. The county is seeking to change the rules at this stage of the game when the Latino population is growing in numbers and strength.

True, large segments of the Latino population who have immigrated legally are not yet U.S. citizens, and this has been an obstacle to full Latino empowerment. To conclude, however, that immigrants should be ignored in political apportionments is an exercise in flawed reasoning reminiscent of 18th-Century arguments that slaves should count only as three-fifths of a person when apportioning congressional districts.

We need to recall that federal courts have ruled in landmark decisions that a fundamental principle of our nation’s government is “equal representation for equal numbers of people.” By adhering to this standard, courts such as the California Supreme Court have wisely rejected apportionment based on the number of registered voters, a basis that could have some ludicrous consequences for political representation. Here’s one: If the number of registered voters were to be used as the standard, do we exclude children because they cannot vote?

Additionally, using the total number of residents as a basis for apportioning political districts promotes equality of access to political representatives. One of the most important functions of elected officials is providing services and information to their constituents--no matter what their age or status. In contrast, carving out districts with equal numbers of larger populations than others. As a result, constituents in these larger districts (those with large immigrant enclaves) would have less access to elected officials.

Finally, those who would excluded legal immigrants from the population base for redistricting fail to recognize that the dividing line between legal immigrants who are not yet U.S. citizens and those who are is fuzzy. In a national survey, the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials found that one out of two Latino immigrants initiates the naturalization process. Every year in Los Angeles County, more than 4,000 Latino immigrants become Americans by choice; nationally, the number of Mexican immigrants who naturalize is surpassed only by the number of Philippine immigrants.

Those who would exclude legal immigrants from political consideration suffer from political amnesia--they have forgotten that one of the strengths of this nation has been the cultural and political incorporation of immigrants throughout its history. At the turn of the century, when the ports of entry for Irish, German, Italian and Russian immigrants were in the East Coast cities, naturalization drives were held by local governments to promote U.S. citizenship among immigrants, many of whose descendants are now living in Los Angeles County. Even today, such cities as New York and Miami have special offices that deal with immigrant affairs. Remarkably, Los Angeles County, one of the major ports of entry in contemporary America, has never established such an office.

Legal challenges to the redistricting of Los Angeles County are not over. In the near future we will continue to hear elaborate public arguments with a common theme: Some county residents are more equal than others.

Espousing taxation without representation suggests little progress in the political history of a country that champions democracy. Let’s reaffirm the basic American political principle of equality for all. It’s a standard we can be proud of.