Jan. 22 Election Ordered for Redrawn 1st District : Supervisors: Latino politicians begin jockeying to run for the seat. Winner would succeed Schabarum.

A federal judge who ruled that Los Angeles County’s supervisorial boundaries discriminated against Latinos ordered Thursday that an election be held Jan. 22 to choose a successor to Supervisor Pete Schabarum in a redrawn 1st District.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon set the election during a hearing attended by Latino politicians who are considering running for the powerful board, including U.S. Rep. Esteban Torres, Los Angeles City Council members Richard Alatorre and Gloria Molina, and Sarah Flores, a former Schabarum aide.

“It’s about time,” said Flores, whose campaign was thrown into limbo by the historic voting rights case. “I’m ready.”

Flores was the top finisher in the 10-candidate June primary to succeed the retiring Schabarum and had been slated to face Superior Court Judge Gregory O’Brien in a runoff Tuesday. But the supervisorial election was postponed in August by a federal appellate court.

Last week, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Kenyon’s ruling that the all-white board diluted the voting power of the county’s 3 million Latinos. The appeals court let stand a new political map drawn by civil rights groups and directed Kenyon to schedule an election in the redrawn 1st District.

The new district--stretching from El Sereno and Lincoln Heights east to Irwindale and La Puente and southeast to Santa Fe Springs--is 71% Latino. Democrats outnumber Republicans, 66% to 23%.

Kenyon set today as the opening day for candidates to file papers to run for the seat. To qualify for the ballot, candidates must collect 20 voters’ signatures and pay $943.44, or gather 3,774 signatures. Candidates have until Nov. 30 to file papers.

The race is expected to lead to the election of the first Latino supervisor in 115 years, making the new board member one of the nation’s most powerful Latino elected officials. The election also could tip the balance of power on the five-member board, now controlled by conservatives.

Outside the courthouse, Alatorre, Molina and Torres held a joint press conference to announce that they will hold a private meeting today in an effort to agree on a single Democratic candidate they can get behind.

But all three politicians said they want to be that candidate, and an aide to Rep. Matthew Martinez (D-Montebello) said his boss also is considering running.

“I have every intention of running,” Alatorre said.

Torres, a Democrat from La Puente who was reelected Tuesday, said, “Yes, I’m running. There’s no question about it.”

Rep. Ed Roybal (D-Los Angeles) said in a telephone interview that he will attend the meeting but does not plan to run for supervisor. Roybal said he wants to prevent a “blood bath” in the Latino community in which two or more popular Democrats split the vote, allowing a Republican to win.

As the Democrats were gathered outside the courthouse, Flores, a Republican, was off to the side saying, “Don’t count me out” of the race. Flores, backed by conservative Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana, raised about $400,000 for the primary, but she spent it all.

O’Brien said Thursday that he does not plan to run again. “I’m from the East San Gabriel Valley,” he said. “I don’t think the people in that new district would see me as anything but a carpetbagger.”

Schabarum is eligible to run but has said he will not. Under the judge’s order, candidates of the old and new 1st Districts are eligible to run.

The election schedule approved Thursday was drawn up by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union, which along with the U.S. Justice Department are plaintiffs in the voting rights suit. The schedule provides for 50 days for campaigning after the filing deadline.

If no candidate receives a majority of the vote Jan. 22, the top two finishers will face off Feb. 19. If a candidate wins a majority of the vote in the primary, he or she will take office Feb. 8. Otherwise, the winner of the runoff will be sworn in March 8.

In its continuing effort to block the new redistricting plan, the board’s conservative majority hopes to win a review of last week’s decision from an 11-member panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or, failing that, the U.S. Supreme Court. If the review is granted, the election could again be postponed.

During the court hearing, MALDEF attorney Richard Fajardo alerted the judge that Antonovich and Dana have asked Gov. George Deukmejian to determine if Schabarum has violated requirements that he live in the district he serves. If the governor finds that Schabarum has violated the residency requirement, the two supervisors want Deukmejian to appoint Flores to the 1st District seat. Schabarum contends he lives in the new 1st District.

Kenyon said, “Let’s cross each bridge as we get to it.”