Asian Groups Unhappy With Proposals for Redistricting : Politics: Spokesmen are distressed that new district lines fail to concentrate their voters to increase their clout.

An affront. An insult. Ridiculous.

Leaders of the South Bay’s Asian-American community offer plenty of opinions about how state lawmakers propose to redraw California’s legislative districts. Few of the reviews are friendly.

For months, prominent local Asian-Americans have been calling for legislative districts linking Asian and Pacific Islander strongholds in Carson, Gardena and Torrance. That, they say, would boost the ethnic groups’ political clout by concentrating their communities’ voters.

But under the Legislature’s plans for reapportionment--the once-a-decade realignment of state political boundaries--Carson and Gardena would stay in one Assembly district and Torrance in another, as is currently the case. State Senate reapportionment plans, meanwhile, would place Carson and Gardena, which are now in a single Senate district, in two districts.

The Democratic-controlled Legislature passed the plans on Thursday, but they are expected to be vetoed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. And even if the veto is overridden, the plans may face a lawsuit by minority groups. But the likelihood of such challenges didn’t dampen the criticism from South Bay Asian-American leaders.

“It’s quite obvious that the lines are being drawn to save the incumbents,” Torrance City Councilman George Nakano said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Said Carson Mayor Michael Mitoma: “It’s an affront to all of us. It’s as though they didn’t care at all about what we wanted.”

The redistricting demands of Asian-American leaders reflect the fast growth of their South Bay constituencies. In Torrance, according to the 1990 Census, the Asian population has grown to 28,821 since 1980--an increase of 113%. In Carson, it reached 19,875, a 68% increase, and in Gardena, Asians numbered 16,153, an increase of 33%.

The trend has contributed to the election of several South Bay Asian-Americans to local office. In addition to Mitoma and Nakano, who has expressed interest in a 1994 Torrance mayoral bid, there are Carson City Clerk Helen Kawagoe, Los Angeles City Board of Education President Warren Furutani of Gardena, Gardena City Councilmen Masani Fukai and Paul Tsukahara, and Gardena City Clerk May Doi.

But no Asian-American holds a seat in the state Legislature. Lawmakers should draw districts that Asian-Americans have a reasonable chance to win, say Nakano, Mitoma and Furutani, leaders of a group called South Bay Asian/Pacific Islander Committee for Fair Reapportionment.

“We need advocates for our concerns,” Furutani said. “We aren’t looking for an area where we are a majority. We are looking for an area where we have a chance.”

Furutani’s group has criticized the Legislature’s state Senate redistricting plan because it would send state Sen. Bill Greene’s district into Carson and state Sen. Diane Watson’s into Gardena. The two communities are currently in the district of Ralph Dills (D-Gardena), which would be shifted out of the South Bay altogether.

“I can’t believe it,” Furutani said. “They just chopped us right in half. That’s the absolute opposite of what we wanted.”

These objections contrast with the warm reception other Asian-Americans have given a proposed Senate district in another part of Los Angeles County. That district would link several heavily Asian-American communities in the San Gabriel Valley with Chinatown, Little Tokyo and parts of Koreatown.

“There are gains for us because this would mean a concentration of Asian-American communities,” said Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. “But we still have significant problems with (plans for) the South Bay.”

At the Assembly level, South Bay Asian-American political leaders had high hopes that if a district were created that included Carson, Gardena and portions of Torrance, Asian-American voters would be concentrated sufficiently to have a major effect on the outcome of races.

Representatives of the South Bay Asian/Pacific Islander Committee argued repeatedly for such a district in public hearings on reapportionment. But the proposal had a major flaw: It would tread on the political toes of two Assembly incumbents, cutting across the existing districts of Richard Floyd (D-Carson) and Gerald Felando (R-San Pedro).

Under the Assembly plans approved last week, Floyd and Felando’s districts would retain their core communities, with Floyd’s including Gardena, Carson and Hawthorne, and Felando’s encompassing Torrance, part of San Pedro and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Floyd and Felando argue that it would be artificial to link Carson and Gardena with Torrance, saying Torrance has more in common with the beach communities and the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Floyd also asserts that as a whole, the Legislature’s redistricting plans protect ethnic minority power in accordance with federal law. He says the Asian-American leaders were wrong to assume that only they can adequately represent Asian-Americans.

“I don’t know about them, but I try to be somewhat color blind,” Floyd said. “I represent people because they’re Americans and Californians.”

Felando points out that although he likes the Legislature’s plans for his district, he joined other Republicans in voting against the reapportionment blueprints on grounds that, statewide, they are unfair to the GOP.

“I don’t draw the lines,” Felando said. “Tell (the Asian-American leaders) to talk to the Democrats.”