Latinos Struggle to Get Vote Out and Candidates In : Elections: Despite massive gains in population, few Orange County Latinos hold public office. They say they must stick together to turn things around.

As the Nov. 6 election draws closer, a handful of Latino politicians hope to break a pattern in Orange County in which large Latino population gains have not been reflected in the rosters of public officeholders.

Pointing to statistics that show Latinos comprising almost 18% of the county’s population--a 46% jump over the past decade--Latino leaders and candidates complain that representation on elected boards and commissions has not kept pace.

In some elections this year, such as for the Anaheim City Council and the Westminster School District, both with large Latino populations, there are no Latinos seeking office. No Latino, in fact, has ever served on the Anaheim City Council.

“It’s very sad, because . . . obviously the population is growing but the political participation isn’t growing proportionally by any stretch of the imagination, here or anywhere,” said Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, the county’s highest-ranking Latino elected official.

“On the other hand, I’m optimistic because I’ve seen in the last presidential campaign, and in the gubernatorial campaign now, the candidates giving unprecedented attention to the Latino vote,” he said.

Just why Latinos are so under-represented in Orange County--there are only 29 elected officeholders out of more than 400 seats--is attributed to a variety of factors, among them a relatively low Latino turnout at the polls and conservatism among white voters that tends to keep incumbents in office.

Two women are trying to change all that. Political maverick Evelyn Colon Becktell, coordinator of the Santa Ana Senior Center, is vying for the state Senate in the 32nd District, running against incumbent Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim). Irene Martinez, president of the Mexican-American Women’s National Assn. of Orange County and coordinator of a Santa Ana social service agency, is seeking to become the first Latino on the Santa Ana City Council.

Whether they win or lose, they say, one of the most important consequences of their campaigns will be to build a foundation for the future, either for themselves or for other Latino candidates.

“You have to start planting the seeds now,” said Martinez, who is challenging incumbent Richards L. Norton. “You need elected Latinos and Latinas who as part of their agendas want to increase the power base of our community . . . and help identify more Latino candidates who could run for office.”

One race where Latino voters are being heavily courted is the 72nd Assembly District, which encompasses parts of Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Westminster and Anaheim. Because the contest between incumbent Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and Tom Umburg, his Democratic opponent, is predicted to be a close one, both parties have launched massive campaigns to woo Latino voters, as well as Asians and other ethnic minorities who make up the district.

But as far as Latinos themselves vying for power or cultivating their own candidates, there is little evidence of that happening this year.

Many Latino leaders involved in campaigns this season, or working in voter registration drives throughout the county, say they are still stinging from the controversial 1988 confrontation in which poll guards hired by Republican officials were accused of intimidating Latinos attempting to vote. That no one has so far been prosecuted in the case is a sign that too few Latinos have made it to the upper echelons of power, some activists say.

“It is very frustrating,” said Paul Garza, a former Democratic Party executive director who has picketed every week to protest lack of prosecution in the poll guard incident. “I guess we just have to look at it as a challenge for the Latino community to really start to take seriously its challenge to become more self-reliant, to go out there and stand up for our own needs, and to do it and do it more effectively.”

Candidates and political analysts often complain that it is difficult to know what Latino voters want, because they don’t tend to vote. Research by the Southwest Voter Registration Project last year found that California Latino voter turnout throughout the 1980s has remained constant at 6% to 7% of total votes cast, despite a 25% population increase in Latino registered voters since 1984.

Harry Pachon, executive director of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, noted that flawed data is often used in determining Latino voting trends.

Pachon, a political science professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, said the problem with many studies is they do not distinguish between people who are here illegally--and therefore not eligible to vote--and other Latinos who have been here for generations.

He also pointed out that while Orange County has a long way to go in terms of better electoral representation for Latinos, it is not as bleak a picture as some would paint.

“Everybody sees that much progress remains to be made, but the glass isn’t fully empty,” he said, pointing out that Latinos hold posts in Orange County ranging from the Board of Supervisors level to Superior Court judges to small school districts.

Pachon said Latino voting strength will grow in the next few years for several reasons. First, many more Latinos now going through the amnesty process will also apply for citizenship and will therefore become eligible to vote. He said the Santa Ana-Anaheim area has the second highest number of amnesty applicants in California, after Los Angeles.

Nationwide, he said, naturalization of Mexican immigrants has more than doubled in the last six years, from about 10,000 a year to from 22,000 to 25,000 in the last few years.

“If this number keeps increasing, as it is expected to, you’ll see increased voter participation,” he said.

In a nationwide study conducted last year that could have important implications for political recruitment, his organization found that 81% of naturalized Latino immigrants have registered to vote but have not aligned themselves with one party or another.

Another factor that may indicate the potential for increased Latino voting strength is age. The median age of Latinos in the United States is about 10 years below the median age for other Americans, he said.

“Half of our people are below the age of 24,” he said. “That is precisely the age range that is least likely to vote, the 18- to 24-year-olds. What this means to me is that in Orange County, you are going to see two strains of new voters coming into the electoral system in the next few years. The older voter and the newly legalized voter.”

But whether those future eligible voters will bother to make their mark at the voting booths will depend on whether they believe they can make a difference. And for that, say Latino leaders, voter education programs need to begin now.

Most of the voter registration and education going on now is geared toward the contentious 72nd Assembly District race. Latino leaders worry that so much attention and money is being focused on that race that other races suffer from neglect by both parties.

“Certainly I have not gotten the help from the party that I would have liked to,” said Becktell, the state Senate candidate. “They’re focusing on one race and one race only, the 72nd. It’s almost like I’m a non-candidate when it comes to assistance or know-how from the party.”

Some say the conversatism of Orange County’s voters makes it doubly difficult for Latino candidates.

“In Orange County, there are maybe a couple of extra hurdles (for Latinos) to overcome in running for office compared to other counties,” said David Valles, a former president of the Mexican-American Bar Assn., whose political action committee makes endorsements. “You’re dealing with a much more conservative group than in Los Angeles County, and while I might not call them anti-Hispanic, the influences here are to maintain the status quo and to leave the Hispanic influence out in the wings.”

In Anaheim, for example, a city with a 21% Latino population, Latinos have never served on the City Council, nor are any running for seats this time. In Santa Ana, the only Orange County city where Latinos comprise a majority, just two of the seven City Council members and two of the five school board members are Latino.

Becktell and Martinez say the biggest lesson they have learned in this election is how much the support of other Latinos, from those already in power to the non-professionals who may not speak English, means to their success.

“It is so desperately necessary for us to come together and support each other and to tell each other that politics affects us all,” Martinez said. “I don’t think, especially in this county, that that has always been the case.”

PROMINENT LATINO OFFICIALS IN COUNTY

Name City or District Title COUNTY Gaddi H. Vasquez 3rd District Supervisor CITY OFFICIALS Fred Barrera Orange councilman Maria Moreno Placentia councilwoman Edmund Ponce Placentia city clerk John Acosta Santa Ana councilman Miguel A. Pulido Jr. Santa Ana councilman Victoria Cardenas-Jaffe Mission Viejo councilwoman Salvador Sapien Stanton councilman Anita Huseth Westminster councilwoman JUDGES Francisco Briseno Santa Ana Superior Court Luis Cardenas Westminster Superior Court Francisco F. Firmat Santa Ana Superior Court Francis Munoz Newport Beach Municipal Court Manuel Ramirez Santa Ana Superior Court David Velasquez Laguna Niguel Municipal Court

Source: The National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials; Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Orange County