Political Remap May Make Dills Sacrificial Lamb : Politics: State senator’s 30th District may be reconfigured into a largely Latino district centered in the Bell Gardens-Commerce area.

The political map of South Bay state Senate districts would undergo some dramatic changes under a reapportionment plan unveiled Wednesday by the Senate leadership.

One of the proposal’s most significant aspects would shift the 30th Senate District now represented by veteran lawmaker Ralph C. Dills out of the South Bay. That allows the political map makers to reconfigure the 30th District into a largely Latino one centered in the Bell Gardens-Commerce area of Southeast Los Angeles County.

Dills, a Gardena Democrat and one of the Legislature’s elder statesmen, described himself as “the sacrificial lamb” in the once-a-decade redrawing of district boundaries. He bemoaned the plan to carve up what he fondly calls “Dills Country,” and said the proposed district’s boundaries “look like hell.”

But backers of the plan defend it as one of the measures necessary to help the Legislature meet federal requirements for maximizing the voting strength of minorities.

Other major changes proposed for the South Bay include shifting into the region portions of two districts now represented by Los Angeles Democrats: Herschel Rosenthal’s West Los Angeles-based district and Bill Greene’s South-Central district. Rosenthal’s district would extend into Lawndale and El Segundo; Greene’s into Carson.

The districts of two longtime South Bay lawmakers also would be reconfigured. Los Angeles Sen. Diane Watson’s heavily Democratic district moves further east into Gardena and Harbor Gateway, where Dills’ home is located. The seat of Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach) is pushed further east into Lakewood and away from his political base in the South Bay.

While there are wholesale changes in geography, voter registration in the South Bay districts remains virtually unchanged, meaning the seats continue to favor one party or the other.

The new lines were released at a Capitol press conference held by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and Republican Senate Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno.

Whether the new state Senate political map will be adopted remains in doubt. The plan is subject to fine-tuning before it is voted on by lawmakers, who are scheduled to redraw Assembly, Senate and congressional lines before recessing for the year on Sept. 13.

At stake in the plan is control of the 40-member state Senate, where the political breakdown now is 26 Democrats, 13 Republicans and one independent.

As expected, the Senate redistricting plan appears to shift political clout away from coastal areas and into inland counties that have been growing at a much faster clip. In general, the map makers had to extend boundary lines to the east to ensure that each Senate district had the required 744,000 people.

Changes in the South Bay Senate districts were prompted by these population shifts and the dictates of the federal Voting Rights Act, which directs the Legislature to maximize the opportunities of blacks, Latinos and other minorities to win legislative seats.

In the South Bay, that latter factor meant the Senate map makers had to preserve the seats of two black incumbents--Greene and Watson.

At the same time, Los Angeles County’s changing demographic makeup dictated the creation of a third seat in which Latino voters represented at least 40% of the voting population. Currently, Sens. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) represent districts that are largely Latino. Torres, Calderon and Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino) are the only Latinos serving in the Senate.

To fully enfranchise blacks and Latinos, map makers had to split them off from Dills’ Anglo population, according to a legislative aide close to the reapportionment process. Dills’ district would include Paramount, Lynwood, South Gate, Huntington Park, Maywood, Bell, Bell Gardens, Commerce and Cudahy, as well as encompass the San Gabriel Valley cities of Montebello, Monterey Park and Alhambra. He would lose San Pedro, Wilmington and Carson.

Greene’s 27th Senate District, meanwhile, would include Carson and Compton, as well as Watts and parts of South-Central Los Angeles. Greene would lose Huntington Park and South Gate. The district’s voter registration would remain more than 80% Democratic, and blacks would make up nearly 38% of the population.

The shape of the area’s other districts would look like this:

* Rosenthal’s 22nd District would include Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, the Pico-Robertson neighborhood in West Los Angeles, Studio City, Culver City, Tarzana and Lawndale. It would lose Encino. The district would stay at 58% Democratic registration.

* Watson’s 28th District would encompass Inglewood, Hawthorne, Westchester, Gardena, Harbor Gateway and part of Torrance. The most significant change would be the removal of Marina del Rey from the district. The district would stay 73% Democratic in registration.

* Beverly’s 29th District would continue to be composed of predominantly Anglo neighborhoods in the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Hawaiian Gardens, parts of Torrance and most of Long Beach. El Segundo would no longer be in the 29th District. The party registration would stay virtually unchanged, dropping from 48.5% Republican to 46.2%

Dills noted that the Latino population in his new district would be nearly 68% and that Latinos would make up about 40% of the district’s voters. Voter registration in Dills’ new district would be 62% Democratic, a 4% drop from the existing 30th District in which Dills last year easily won reelection to a four-year term.

In targeting Dills, 81, for possible political extinction, the plan spotlights one of the Legislature’s most colorful politicians.

First elected to the Legislature in 1938, he is known for his loud ties, neatly coiffed silver-blue hair and saxophone playing at campaign fund-raisers. But Dills is also a seasoned political professional who wields a great deal of clout in the Capitol as chairman of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, which handles liquor, gambling and horse racing legislation.

The proposed new lines did not come as a complete surprise to Dills, who left the Legislature in the 1940s, served as a judge and then returned to the Senate in 1966.

In March, Dills acknowledged that his district could be wiped out or combined with another one because Los Angeles County’s overall population growth failed to keep pace with the increase in the booming Inland Empire, meaning that the county would probably lose representation in the Senate. At the time, Dills said he might run for Congress if his district were carved up.

While he has not ruled out a congressional race, Dills’ political heart remains in the state Legislature.

Dills said he believes he could capture the new Senate seat, even though he recognizes “a good hotshot Hispanic could give me a good run.”

Likewise, Dills maintained that he would have a good shot at winning the Senate seat of Greene under the new reapportionment plan. That’s because Dills now represents about 40% of the people who would be part of Greene’s new district. Dills and others say that Greene, who has suffered a string of ailments during the past two years, may not seek reelection in 1992.