Molina Says She’ll Run as Latino Unity Falters : Supervisors: Councilman Alatorre says he might oppose fellow council member. Stage is set for a lively battle in redrawn 1st District.

Efforts to choose a consensus Democratic candidate for Los Angeles County supervisor from the Latino community seemed to have failed Monday as City Councilwoman Gloria Molina announced her candidacy and longtime rival Councilman Richard Alatorre, withholding his blessing, said he might enter the race.

At the very least, the development sets the stage for a lively contest between Molina and Sarah Flores--two strong Latina candidates--who have stepped forward in hopes of becoming Los Angeles County’s first Latino supervisor this century.

Molina emerged as the choice of U.S. Reps. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) and Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) to oppose the Republican Flores in a Jan. 22 election in a new, heavily Latino district carved out by a federal judge in a historic voting rights case.

Alatorre said Monday that he is considering running for the seat. “I have no intention right now of backing anyone else but me,” he said.

Alatorre, who along with state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) was conspicuously absent from Molina’s press conference, said he withdrew from private talks with other Latino politicians last weekend because of concern that the behind-the-scenes maneuvering would lead to the kind of racial polarization that the voting rights lawsuit sought to remedy.

Filed by civil rights groups and the U.S. Justice Department, the lawsuit spurred U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon to rule last summer that county supervisors deliberately diluted Latino voting power in drawing district boundaries in 1981. As a result, Kenyon redrew all district lines and ordered a new election in the realigned 1st District.

“I believe some of my colleagues have lost sight of what we have achieved in this lawsuit,” Alatorre said. “Some appear to believe that we need only select a consensus candidate . . . and that the seat can be collected as an entitlement. This is a sure prescription for defeat and continued frustration in the Latino community.”

Flores, a former aide to Supervisor Pete Schabarum, wasted no time Monday in branding her opponent as the choice of “the East Los Angeles bosses” who are attempting to turn a nonpartisan race into a partisan affair. Officially, the board is nonpartisan. But the five-member board controlled by conservatives has followed a party line in making decisions on funding of programs.

“I welcome the challenge,” said Flores, who finished first in a June primary in the old 1st District, only to see the results thrown out by a judge. “I’m a tough lady, too.”

During a news conference in Pico Rivera, Roybal and Esteban Torres said they agreed to support Molina after Alatorre and Art Torres decided not to attend a private meeting Sunday.

“Three of us, a majority, have come together in agreement,” Molina said. “And if that is not quite consensus, it is very close to it.” Molina said the short campaign season--10 weeks--made a speedy decision necessary.

The meeting was a follow-up to a Friday session attended by all five Democratic politicians. It was designed to prevent a divisive battle in the Latino community that could lead to the election of a Republican, possibly even a non-Latino, to succeed the retiring Schabarum in the new 1st District.

The new district stretches from El Sereno and Lincoln Heights east to Irwindale and La Puente and southeast to Santa Fe Springs. Latinos make up 51% of the voters and 71% of the residents. Democrats outnumber Republicans 66% to 23%.

Molina said Monday that she has represented about 30% of the new district in her capacities as a councilwoman or assemblywoman. She said she spent the day poring over political data and maps with her campaign consultant and started calling local officials to seek their endorsements.

Flores, 52, said the new district encompasses 25% of the old district, where she finished first and which she has represented as a field deputy to Schabarum for a number of years.

Alatorre said in an interview that he refused to participate in further talks after hearing that Roybal and Esteban Torres had already made up their minds to support Molina before Sunday’s meeting.

“The idea of a consensus was a good idea,” Alatorre said. “I went into it objectively and honestly. I didn’t feel that others were doing the same.”

Alatorre said he also was concerned about the exclusion of other Los Angeles County Latino politicians from the meetings.

He also expressed concern that the closed-door meetings would produce a “Latino consensus candidate who will enter the campaign with the public perception that he or she is seeking office to represent only the Latino community, and with little regard for the other 49% of the voters of the 1st District or the diverse communities in the balance of the county.”

Alatorre, 47, said he is trying to resolve legal questions over whether he can run for supervisor without giving up his council seat, which is up for reelection in April. He has until Nov. 30 to decide. Molina can run without risking her council job because she does not face reelection until 1993.

“It is ironic that Mrs. Molina has always criticized other people for the same thing (closed-door meetings),” Alatorre said. “But when it goes in her favor, it’s OK.”

Molina defended the process that led to her candidacy. “The meeting included all those interested in running,” she said. “Reaching agreement is just plain smart, part of a winning strategy.”

If Alatorre decides to enter the race, it would not be the first time he has tangled with Molina.

Molina, 42, defeated an Alatorre-backed candidate to win election to the City Council in 1987. Ironically, she was elected to a seat drawn by the council to settle a voting rights lawsuit similar to the one brought against the county board.

Raised in Pico Rivera and Montebello, Molina became politically active as a student at Rio Hondo Community College. She went to work as an aide to Art Torres when he was an assemblyman and then joined President Jimmy Carter’s Administration as deputy director in San Francisco for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

She then joined the staff of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), serving as his top Southern California deputy before winning election to the Assembly in 1982.

Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) has also expressed interest in running for supervisor. He could not be reached for comment.

Art Torres also could not be reached, but he has previously said he is not interested in running.

The Board of Supervisors’ conservative majority still holds hope that an 11-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals will agree to review the redistricting case, again throwing the election into limbo. Failing that, supervisors said they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If such a review is granted, the election could be postponed again.