Supervisors Approve Remap Plan but Latino Group Vows Challenge : Politics: Hispanic Redistricting Committee says it will contest the new boundaries on grounds that they violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously adopted a new redistricting plan that representatives of a Latino group said they plan to challenge on the grounds that it violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

Members of the nonpartisan Orange County Hispanic Redistricting Committee said they will be filing a letter today with the U.S. Department of Justice seeking an investigation that they hope will force officials to come up with a new plan that better reflects the county’s ethnic makeup.

The plan adopted by the board, which goes into effect in 30 days, barely changes the ethnic balance of any of the five redefined supervisorial districts. However, it will split Santa Ana, the county’s most ethnic city, into three districts. The city currently is contained entirely within Supervisor Roger R. Stanton’s 1st District.

Members of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee say the new redistricting plan does not take into account the tremendous growth in the county’s Latino population, which nearly doubled in the last decade.

“If they could have drawn one district with more than 50% Hispanics, why didn’t they?” said Arturo Montez, co-chairman of the committee.

Before the board’s vote, representatives of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee tried one last time to ask the supervisors to consider some of the plans they had proposed, one of which showed a district with up to 59% Latinos.

“We want to save the public as well as the Board of Supervisors the trouble of going through a lawsuit that will cost several thousands of dollars,” said Zeke Hernandez, a member of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee. “We don’t want to get to that point.”

But their comments not only failed to change the plan that was before the board, they also seemed to draw the supervisors’ ire.

“I hate to be threatened and challenged in my integrity,” Supervisor Thomas F. Riley said. “To be threatened and so forth is a way of turning me off.”

Board Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez said he resented critics saying that Latinos would only be elected to the board if new lines were drawn to create a district with an ethnic majority.

“Some of the comments made regarding that specific issue are a little bit on the extreme,” he said. “I think the voters and the people of this county on a very broad basis look at the qualifications of individuals who pursue or seek public office. I feel it’s very important to put it in perspective.”

Vasquez also said that there are more than 30 Latino elected officials in the county, more than in many other areas.

Montez said later that he was “insulted” by Vasquez’s remark, because the 30 Latino officeholders still represent only a tiny percentage of the total number of elected officials in the county.

Montez said he also thought that Vasquez should be doing more to help create a Latino district. While Vasquez, a Republican, is the first Latino to ever serve on the Board of Supervisors, he got there through an appointment in 1987 by former Gov. George Deukmejian to represent the 3rd District, which is only 15% Latino. He was, however, reelected to a four-year term in 1988.

“All we seek is to be able to elect a representative of our choice,” Montez said.

By law, the supervisorial districts have to be redrawn every 10 years when new U.S. census numbers are released. The lengthy process, mired in the politics of incumbency and ethnic voting strength, is supposed to assure that the county’s population is evenly divided among the five districts. The federal Voting Rights Act also requires that “communities of interest,” such as ethnic neighborhoods, be kept intact in the redistricting.

To usher through a new plan, supervisors appointed a five-member committee made up of an aide from each of their offices. Members of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee have complained that there was little attempt to truly include suggestions that would have threatened the incumbency of any of the aides’ bosses.

“There was not that much dialogue,” Hernandez said.

In their letter to Darrell W. Jones, chief of the voting section at the Department of Justice, members of the Hispanic Redistricting Committee are requesting a formal investigation of the county’s plan.

“It was clear from the start that the County Board of Supervisors was set on adopting a plan that benefited their own political futures, at the expense of the voting rights of Hispanics,” the letter states.

The ethnic makeup of Santa Ana, which is 65% Latino--more than even the city of Los Angeles--signifies that Latinos are concentrated enough in Orange County to merit a district where they predominate, Latino leaders said.

But Stanton pointed out that his 1st District, as defined by the newly adopted plan, will be “majority-minority.” It will consist of 64% minorities, including 47% Latinos and 14% Asians--up slightly from the district’s current ethnic population.

The Hispanic Redistricting Committee, Stanton said, is not content with the new plan only because Latinos are not in the majority. Stanton said the board could not create majority districts for every group that requested one.

“Where does one stop in terms of could have, would have, should have?” Stanton asked. “We could have truly made five districts where there was no majority-minority at all.”

He said he does not believe the challenge to the county’s redistricting map will have any merit, especially because the Board of Supervisors already includes a Latino and a woman.

“We have a map that is a logical, cohesive map for several factors,” he said. “We have distributed the population equally in our five districts. That is the No. 1 thing you look at.”