Congressional Latino District Gains Support : Reapportionment: House Democrats release three proposals to create a new seat in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

Congressional Democrats on Wednesday unveiled proposals to establish a new, strongly Latino seat in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

The area’s growing Latino population would make up 50% of the district’s residents, according to Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), one of two negotiators for California’s congressional Democrats.

The Democrats released three different plans, two of which included maps showing the new district extending roughly from North Hollywood to Pacoima. The district’s voter registration would be 54.5% Democrat and 35.5% Republican.

Despite the large Latino population, state Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), a political ally of Berman’s who is exploring a congressional race, said he would be interested in the new seat. But Margolin would not commit to becoming a candidate, maintaining he hasn’t seen definitive maps.

With a Friday midnight deadline for the once-a-decade reapportionment looming, lawmakers Wednesday were still drawing final maps, creating a certain amount of confusion about the exact shape of the prospective districts.

Two generalized maps reflecting the reshuffling of Valley-area congressional districts were released at a hearing of the Assembly Elections and Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee. The committee is also reviewing plans for new Assembly and state Senate districts.

With lawmakers fine-tuning the proposals, Berman said that congressional Democrats are urging the Legislature to approve all three plans for reapportioning California’s seats in the House of Representatives and to let Republican Gov. Pete Wilson select among them.

Maps for the third plan have not been released, but demographic information about the plans indicates that all three include a heavily Latino district.

The two maps that have been released show Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson’s 23rd District changing radically. The Los Angeles Democrat’s district would drop Woodland Hills, Tarzana and other Valley areas, and take on a coastal character, picking up Santa Monica, Marina del Rey, El Segundo and Manhattan Beach in the South Bay.

The maps also outline a new seat that would take in Lancaster in the Antelope Valley and stretch into the high desert of San Bernardino County and possibly the San Gabriel Valley.

Antelope Valley business and political figures have urged that the area be placed in a single district, arguing that the region, now split among four districts, needs a single voice in Washington. The maps seem to show that the area would still be divided into at least two districts.

With a booming population, especially in areas such as the Antelope Valley, California will be adding seven congressional districts to the 45 it already holds. Based on the 1990 census, each district will have about 572,000 people.

In the San Fernando Valley, the new congressional district will cover part of the same territory as the district of Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), which also would become largely Latino under the Democrats’ plans.

Changes in the federal Voting Rights Act require that the voting strength of minority groups not be diluted by being divided among several districts.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) said the new district would be carved from areas now represented by him, Berman and Beilenson.

“The feeling was that, in the San Fernando Valley, the large Hispanic population should be included in one district, rather than being split, and that concentration of the minority population would become the basis for a congressional district,” Waxman said.

Like Margolin, Berman said he has not made up his mind whether he would run in that district or another district farther west. Parts of that territory in the western San Fernando Valley are now represented by Beilenson.

Beilenson’s district would be pushed south, into areas now represented by Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), who is raising money for a U.S. Senate bid next year. In an interview, Beilenson said he had not requested such a change when he met with political line drawers. “In fact, I told them . . . to retain as much of the current district” as possible, he said.

Beilenson said he has grown close to his Valley constituents during the past decade, and he feels “very bad about, in a sense, being torn away from them. I hope they’ll miss me as much as I’ll miss them.”

Under each of the Democrats’ plans, the core of the district now represented by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) would remain largely the same, continuing to be split between Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Among prospective GOP candidates for a new Valley seat are former GOP congressional nominees George Woolverton of Tarzana, comedian Bob Hope’s son Tony and former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, a Northridge Republican.

Fiedler, now a consultant, said she has no plans to run in a new Valley district. But she acknowledged that she was not completely ruling out a race. “Obviously, reapportionment is very much up in the air,” she said. “It’s difficult to predict how I might feel after I saw the firm reapportionment plans.”

Mark Gladstone reported from Sacramento and Alan C. Miller from Washington.