Minorities Make Up 66% of District in Latino Remap Plan

Saying that a proposal by a county redistricting committee illegally dilutes the strength of minority voters, a group of Latinos on Tuesday unveiled a plan that creates a supervisorial district with a 66% minority population.

Members of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee said at a press conference that a “quiet rage” is building about the county’s redistricting plan, which if approved could result in a lawsuit much like one that recently changed supervisorial districts in Los Angeles County.

“The county is changing, and these people do not want to face reality,” said Arturo Montez, a member of the bipartisan committee of community activists and lawyers. “They want to cling to the current system, even though the Hispanic population alone has risen almost 100%.”

County supervisors appointed a committee made up of five of their own aides to handle the task of coming up with a plan to redraw district boundaries, required by law every 10 years after the U.S. Census figures are released.

After a series of meetings, during which the Supervisorial Redistricting Committee heard--and rejected--a number of proposals made by several groups, it adopted a plan that supervisors will consider at their meeting next Tuesday.

That plan does not include any district where Latinos make up more than half of the eligible voters.

The way the county proposal is drawn, District 1, represented by Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, would have 63% minorities, including 47% Latinos. It would include the cities of Fountain Valley and Stanton and parts of Garden Grove. The proposal also calls for splitting up the city of Santa Ana between Districts 1, 2 and 3, an aspect that members of the Hispanic committee find especially objectionable.

The 1990 Census showed that Santa Ana, the largest city in the county, is 65% Latino. It also showed that one in four Orange County residents is Hispanic, double the percentage of a decade before, and that the Asian population, now constituting 10% of the population, has increased by 177% in 10 years.

The plan that the Hispanic committee will present next Tuesday would not split up any city among districts and would include a District 1 with 50% Latinos, 14% Asians and 2% blacks.

While that plan is not radically different from the county’s proposal, the Hispanic Redistricting Committee is working on another map that would include a District 1 with more than 60% Latinos.

If supervisors do not accept the Hispanic committee’s plan next week, members will consider legal action using the second map as a goal, according to Ruben Smith, the group’s legal counsel.

“We feel that the plan being recommended to the Board of Supervisors is a plan that dilutes the voting power of the Hispanic community as well as that of other minorities,” Smith said. “From a good government point of view, it doesn’t address the needs of the citizens of Orange County.”

Latino leaders said the county’s plan appears to violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

The act, which has been used as the basis of many successful challenges of existing political boundaries throughout the nation, calls for electoral districts to fairly represent “communities of interest.”

That means, Smith said, that neighborhoods with common needs or interests, such as economic class, or social needs, or ethnic roots, must not be split up unfairly.

“Our plan is not one we’ve drawn to create a Hispanic district,” he said. “ . . . We’re asking for a district where whoever is chosen to represent it will be accountable to that community.”

During the series of meetings held by the county’s redistricting committee, the mayors of several cities said they did not want their cities split among supervisorial districts.

The Hispanic committee map carves up the county into five districts that do not split any city among districts. The county’s proposed map splits at least four cities.

Also, the Hispanic committee map leaves the city of Fountain Valley, where Supervisor Stanton lives, out of District 1.

Smith said Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Stanton have more in common with each other than does Fountain Valley.

“Each of these three cities, Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Stanton, have high numbers of immigrants, health issues are important and they all have aging infrastructure,” Smith said. “Fountain Valley has more in common with the coastal cities.”