2 New Senate Districts Give Latinos Edge : Remapping: The political zones, one each in Northern and Southern California, would be created under a bipartisan plan.

Two new Latino-controlled state Senate districts, one in Southern California and one in Northern California, would be created under a bipartisan redistricting plan scheduled to be unveiled today.

The plan was said to create a new heavily Latino seat in Los Angeles County by concentrating into one district Latino communities that now are divided among several. The district would be about 67% Latino by population and its registered voters would be about 40% Latino, several sources said.

The boundaries would snake from Lynwood and Paramount through South Gate and Commerce and then out to the San Gabriel Valley to include Alhambra, Monterey Park and Montebello.

As a result, the current 30th Senate District now represented by Sen. Ralph C. Dills--a Democrat and one of the Legislature’s most senior members--would be divided into so many pieces that Dills would find it difficult, if not impossible, to win reelection.

“It may look like a gerrymander, but it has to be that way,” said Republican Sen. William Craven of Oceanside, vice chairman of the Elections and Reapportionment Committee.

The reason, Craven said, is that the federal Voting Rights Act and recent court decisions require the Legislature to do everything possible when drawing new districts to maximize the political clout of minorities.

There are currently two Latinos in the state Senate, so the new configuration eventually could double Latino representation in the Legislature’s upper house.

In the north, the heavily Latino seat would be the one now represented by Democratic Sen. Alfred Alquist of San Jose, who has been in the Legislature since 1962. But Alquist’s district would not be so radically changed that he could not win reelection if he chose to run. His successor, when he retires, probably would be a Latino.

The political side effect in the Bay Area is that the district now represented by Democratic Sen. Dan McCorquodale, a former Santa Clara County supervisor, would be pushed south out of that county and into the San Joaquin Valley.

Craven and other Republicans and Democrats said a few senators were still quibbling over their boundaries, but that the plan essentially had bipartisan support.

A press conference was scheduled for this morning by Democratic Senate leader David A. Roberti of Los Angeles and Republican leader Ken Maddy of Fresno to provide details on the plan. Maddy was to brief Republican Gov. Pete Wilson on the proposal before the press conference.

Plans for the Assembly, Congress and the State Board of Equalization will be drafted separately and are expected to be released next week.

Wilson has said he will not sign a plan, even if it has bipartisan support, if its purpose is to protect incumbents while minimizing the number of competitive districts. The current partisan lineup in the Senate is 26 Democrats, 13 Republicans and one independent.

It was not clear from information available Tuesday to what extent the proposed plan favors incumbents. But there were a handful of current members who were anything but pleased by the design.

Dills, whose district essentially would be collapsed to make way for a minority seat, clearly was unhappy. Dills’ official residence near Gardena, under the new maps, would be included in the district of Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles).

“They ripped me a real good one,” Dills said.

Dills, who was first elected to the Assembly in 1938 and served a decade before leaving and then returning to serve in the Senate in 1966, was meeting with Roberti and Senate aides in a last-minute effort to fend off the changes.

But any alteration that Roberti might agree to in order to please Dills would have a ripple effect that would risk upsetting the balance that has created bipartisan support for the plan.

Sen. Quentin L. Kopp, a San Francisco independent, also was fuming at the way that city was divided, presumably to favor the chairman of the redistricting committee, Democrat Milton Marks, who also is from San Francisco. Both San Francisco districts were short more than 100,000 people because the relative population growth in the urban area they represent has been less than in the suburbs.

Marks, rather than extend his district farther north than its current Marin County boundary, chose to pick up the voters he needed by including more of San Francisco in his district. This would force Kopp to move farther south into San Mateo County, where he would split representation of four small cities with another member.

Asked if he was happy with that plan, Kopp responded: “Hell no . . . (Marks) clearly picked what he wanted; he suited himself.” When small cities are divided among members, Kopp said, it is disorienting for voters and public officials. “You’re neither fish nor fowl,” he said.