Latino Meeting in O.C. to Focus on Remapping

When the largest gathering of Latino elected officials convenes here today, there will be many political successes to celebrate.

From 1989 to 1990, 221 more Latinos were elected to serve in Congress, statehouses, county buildings, city halls and school board rooms across the nation.

But during the two-day annual convention of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the leaders and other policy-makers will spend much time pondering why the electoral accomplishments for Latinos seem to come to a skidding halt just beyond the local level.

While the U.S. Census shows that Latinos make up almost 10% of the nation’s population, they account for less than 1% of its elected officials, with an overwhelming majority of those on school boards or city councils.

Even in California, where one in four residents is Latino, there are just six Latino legislators.

A Latino has never served in the U.S. Senate, and only a smattering hold seats in Congress. The nation’s only Latino governor in 1990, Republican Bob Martinez of Florida, was defeated Nov. 6 in his reelection bid.

All that is why the word on everybody’s lips during the convention will be redistricting.

“There has been incremental growth in the number of Latinos who hold public office,” said Harry Pachon, NALEO’s national director. “But the big gains are going to be made in 1992 and 1993, when redistricting takes place in many localities throughout the states.”

The list of concerns to be discussed at the conference will range from acquired immune deficiency syndrome to education to free trade with Mexico. But most of about 500 participants will be looking to the political future, talking about how to gain the most from congressional redistricting when it takes place in the next two years.

Explosive Southern California growth, for example, could give Latinos a potential voting majority in four new congressional districts, three in the state Senate and seven in the Assembly.

“It’s no accident that in 1982, after the last reapportionment, the Hispanic congressional caucus jumped from four to eight,” Pachon said. “It follows that when the new lines are drawn that there will be more numbers.

“This is what the NALEO conference is tapping into, providing the opportunities to network, the chance to learn lessons from what is happening in other regions and other states about Latino empowerment,” he said.

In Texas, for example, largely through the work of such organizations as the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the number of Latinos elected to office increased to 1,920, from 565 in 1973. By contrast, in California--which has the largest state Latino population--there were just 572 Latino elected officials last year.

The two groups, working with local leaders, changed the face of Texas politics by successfully challenging in court its gerrymandering, at-large elections and other systems that they said kept minorities out of power positions.

Both organizations were also involved in challenging Los Angeles County’s supervisorial district configurations, which led earlier this year to Gloria Molina becoming the first Latina elected to that board.

With that victory in hand, officials of those organizations, who will be at this week’s conference, have vowed to take their strategy to other areas of California.

The NALEO conference will also bring together such diverse and high-profile leaders as Orange County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, California’s highest-ranking Latino Republican; Raymond G. Sanchez, speaker of New Mexico’s House of Representatives, and Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), NALEO president and one of its founders.

Featured speakers include Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp and Mexico’s Herminio Blanco, chief negotiator on U.S.-Mexico free trade talks.

“The reason we’ve generated so much excitement,” Pachon said, “is because of the very unique way the NALEO conference is bringing together civic leaders from throughout the country to discuss the agenda for Latino empowerment during the 1990s. This is going to be largest gathering to date of Latino elected officials.”

The group, which grew out of meetings among Latino congressional representatives beginning in the late 1970s, has seen the number of Latino officials grow exponentially. There are now 4,004 Latino elected officials nationally.

But while the national Latino population has multiplied in recent decades, the potential strength in numbers has not transformed into political clout. Many critics have said this is because of a lack of unity among the various Latino organizations and elected officials.

Vasquez, who will be co-chairman for the conference, said the accusation was more true in the past than now. “In the last two or three years, great strides have been made to eliminate that lack of unity,” he said.

Vasquez said NALEO has been instrumental in bringing together bipartisan leaders to form agendas on such issues as the U.S.-Mexico trade pact. And he pointed to education, and the high rate of Latinos who drop out of school, as another issue that Latinos--regardless of party or region of origin--could join together to tackle. “On that issue, there is a clear consensus,” he said. “There is no division, and it runs across party lines.”

Others who will attend the conference say the cry for more unity from Latinos themselves is rising.

Frank Newton, executive director of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, which will participate in the conference, said: “More and more, as I have been talking to Hispanic leaders all around the country, I have encountered a very strong attitude of being fed up that we have not come together, and a feeling that it’s about time.”

Newton said that even though the Latino population is made up of different ethnic groups and interests--Cuban-Americans in Florida, for example, who tend to be more conservative than Mexican-Americans in Texas--the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda is trying to identify common issues that the entire Latino community can rally behind.

Pachon said holding the NALEO conference in Orange County, with its reputation of being predominantly white Republican, will help to illustrate that Latinos are no longer just concentrated in pockets of large urban areas or rural sections of the Southwest.

The census showed that almost one in every four Orange County residents is Latino and that Santa Ana, the county seat, has a higher percentage of Latinos--65%--than even Los Angeles.

“People like to think of Latinos in the barrios,” Pachon said. “Our statistics show a suburbanization of Latinos in California, and Orange County is a perfect example of this.”

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Lagging Behind: Latinos in Higher Offices

While Latinos have gained offices on the local level, greater parity in higher government remains a goal. Leaders hope that new census figures reflecting growing numbers of Latinos in the nation may bring about redistricting--and gains beyond school boards and municipal councils.

Disparity at the Upper Levels

The goal of parity in higher government is nearly at hand in Colorado. But representation in California’s state capital lags far behind reflecting the state’s Latino population, the largest in the nation.

Disparity % of Latinos % of Latinos in Repre- Rank State in Population in Legislature sentation 1 New Mexico 38.2% 33.9% -4.3% 2 California 25.8 5.0 -20.8 3 Texas 25.5 14.9 -10.6 4 Arizona 18.8 13.3 -5.5 5 Colorado 12.9 11.0 -1.9 6 New York 12.3 3.3 -9.0 7 Florida 12.2 6.9 -5.3 8 Nevada 10.4 1.6 -8.8 9 New Jersey 9.6 0.8 -8.8 10 Illinois 7.9 1.7 -6.2 U.S. Congress 9 1.9 -7.1 22,354,059

1990 Latino Rank Population 1 579,224 2 7,687,938 3 4,339,905 4 688,338 5 424,302 6 2,214,026 7 1,574,143 8 124,419 9 739,861 10 904,446 U.S. Congress

Power at the Lower Levels

Latino politicians hold office mostly on the local level across the country.

Latino elected officials by level of government, 1990

School Boards: 36.4% Municipal: 32.2% Federal: 0.2% State: 3.3% County: 8.8% Others: 19.0%

Source: 1990 National Roster of Hispanic Elected Officials; U.S. Census; State Yellow Book

Times staff writer Gebe Martinez contributed to this report.