Latino Activists Take Aim at Santa Ana Election Law : Politics: City is on ‘top-five’ list for legal challenge to change at-large voting in council races to district system.

Based on sheer numbers alone, Latinos would seem to have all the makings of a potent political force in Santa Ana.

With a 65% Latino population, Santa Ana is the only municipality among the state’s 10 largest cities to register a majority Latino population, according to the 1990 Census.

Latinos own businesses downtown and elsewhere in Santa Ana; their children make up 83% of the student population in the Santa Ana Unified School District, and three of the five school board members are Latino.

But the tenet that “strength lies in numbers” has eluded them at City Hall, where only two of the seven council members are Latino. Of the city’s 11 department heads, only one is Latino.

Voting-rights activists, meeting in Anaheim at the annual convention of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, believe that the current method of electing City Council members in Santa Ana weakens the political muscle of minorities. As a result, they have placed Santa Ana on a list of the “top five” cities to be targeted through a lawsuit or ballot initiative to transform its at-large voting system into single-member council district representation.

“These types of cases are not easy at all,” Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund said in an interview this week. “But having said that, we have already tentatively determined that we are comfortable and that we would win a case.”

MALDEF led the court battle that resulted last year in the creation of the first Latino supervisorial district in Los Angeles County.

Richard Martinez of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project said Santa Ana, a city of almost 294,000 people, “cannot sit there” with an almost two-thirds Latino population but have only two Latino council members, John Acosta and Miguel A. Pulido Jr.

“There’s no reason why, on God’s green earth, that should happen,” he said. “The at-large system really dilutes the voting strength of the minority community, and we can prove it.”

City officials, however, caution that a voting rights challenge in Santa Ana may be even more difficult to win than activists anticipate. They point out that although there are more than 191,000 Latinos in the city, many are not citizens and cannot vote.

MALDEF’s own figures show that out of the 68,000 registered voters in Santa Ana, only 20,000 are Latino. And of the Latinos eligible to vote, only about one in four go to the polls.

But Latino leaders hope that will change. Immigrants in Santa Ana submitted the second-largest number of amnesty applications in California behind Los Angeles. That could promise a large infusion of new registered voters in Santa Ana by the end of 1994 and bolster attempts to change the method of electing the council members.

Currently, the city’s six council members represent the wards they reside in but are elected by voters throughout the city. The mayor, who does represent a particular ward, is also elected citywide.

If the city was to change to single-member districts, council members would be elected by voters in their districts. Only a few cities in the state elect their council members by district, and only Seal Beach does in Orange County.

Mayor Daniel H. Young said the at-large system does not prevent minorities from getting elected, nor would single-member districts ensure an increase in minorities on the council.

“It does not matter whether it’s citywide (voting) or not,” Young said. “The proof of that is probably the school board.”

The school board, which is elected citywide, is made up of three Latinos, an Asian-American and an Anglo.

Young also points to Acosta, who Young said represents “the most Anglo (ward) of the city, and people are very comfortable with that.”

Costa Mesa political consultant Harvey Englander said changing to a district election system could backfire on minority groups.

For example, he said, if a Latino district drew three minority candidates and one Anglo, the Latino vote might be split, with the Anglo candidate ending up as the top vote-getter.

“For cities the size of Santa Ana, I think it’s getting almost to the point of absurdity to carve out a political district for each minority,” Englander said. “What do you do for blacks? What do you do for Hispanics? What do you do for Jews?”

Given the dramatic population increase in Santa Ana’s Latino community--a 111% jump since the 1980 Census--Councilman Acosta said he understands the argument for the need to broaden minority representation. But he said he has mixed emotions about changing the election system, because he believes the current system could still benefit Latinos.

“If they (Latinos) voted, there would still be Latinos elected because they could outnumber the Anglos,” Acosta said.

Martinez contends it is not apathy that keeps Latinos away from the polls, but “negative experiences” with the system that they feel discriminates against them.

He cited the so-called “poll guard” controversy stemming from the November, 1988, election, in which local Republican Party officials posted uniformed guards at polling places in largely Latino precincts in Santa Ana--a move Democratic Party leaders blasted as an attempt to intimidate Latino voters.

Although no criminal charges were filed in the case, the GOP settled a lawsuit in 1989 for more than $400,000.

Studies by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project of past voting rights battles in other states show that once single-member districts were created, minority participation in elections increased because voters felt their ballots had more of an impact.

“People are not stupid,” Martinez said of the low turnout of minority voters. “They understand when a system is not meant to work for them.”

Of the 100 lawsuits, filed primarily in Texas and New Mexico, that the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project has been involved in, all have been successful, Martinez said.

Hernandez said MALDEF is preparing to prove that “racially polarized voting” exists under at-large systems--that while Anglos might be willing to vote for a Latino school board member, they are less willing to vote for a Latino running for mayor or for the city council.

However, because minority groups are currently focused on reapportionment throughout the state stemming from the 1990 Census, Hernandez and Martinez said, any challenges to local election systems would not begin until the end of the year, at the earliest.

FLEXING MUSCLE: Latino politicians and activists plan the future in Anaheim. B1