Court’s Remap Mixes O.C. Lines : Politics: It would create legislative and congressional districts of at least half Latino registration. Statewide, it could shift the balance of power toward the GOP.

The state Supreme Court on Monday released a plan for new California congressional and legislative districts that portends electoral disaster for incumbents up and down the state and could shift the balance of power in the Legislature toward the Republican Party.

In Orange County, the plan would create districts in both chambers of the Legislature and in Congress that were at least half Latino. Still, the maps would not go as far in that direction as Latino political groups had demanded.

The proposal also created havoc with Orange County’s political landscape by placing the homes of three Assembly members in the same district and by reshaping congressional districts so that three House members were left contemplating the same seat.

“As a practical matter, all of our districts have been put in the Cuisinart and, thus, it is possible for us to lay claim to one another’s territory,” said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach). “The district that I now represent has been cut up four ways.”

The plan split Cox’s hometown of Newport Beach between two congressional districts, one of which also overlaps the seats of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove).

Rohrabacher, who could be forced into a Los Angeles County district if the plan is adopted, said he plans to talk extensively with his two colleagues and he predicted that they would reach an agreement.

“Chris Cox, Dana and Bob Dornan will not be running against each other,” he said.

At least four of the state’s seven new congressional seats would be placed in Southern California under the plan.

The proposed new district maps for 80 Assembly seats, 40 state Senate districts and 52 congressional seats were drawn by a panel of three retired judges appointed by the court after Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and the Democratic-dominated Legislature could not agree on a bipartisan reapportionment plan.

The special masters, as the court’s appointees are known, rejected plans submitted by legislators, the governor and outside interest groups in favor of drawing their own lines.

The high court justices scheduled oral arguments in the case for Jan. 13 and indicated that they will adopt final district lines--incorporating any adjustments to Monday’s lines--by Jan. 28. Those district lines will govern the state’s elections from 1992 through the end of the century unless the Legislature beats the court’s deadline by passing a plan of its own that is signed by the governor--or musters the votes to override a veto.

Release of the court’s tentative lines might prompt legislators from both parties to resume negotiations because so many incumbents would be displaced. In some cases, the court’s masters threw two or three incumbents into a single district.

One example was in Orange County’s Assembly delegation. The proposed 67th Assembly District in the county’s northwestern corner appeared to include the homes of three incumbents--Tom Mays (R-Huntington Beach), Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach) and Doris Allen (R-Cypress).

“I think what’s happening here is that we may all live in the same district,” Mays said. “It’s going to be an interesting two weeks.”

Among Orange County’s state senators, Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) appeared to be the big winner under the masters’ plan as her far-flung district was redrawn to give her the county’s major coastal cities.

Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), however, would appear to lose all of his Orange County territory to a district tailor-made for Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange). But in losing Hill, Orange County would gain a new Republican senator--William Craven of Oceanside--by virtue of new lines that add southeast Laguna Beach and San Clemente to his North San Diego County district.

The scramble that followed Monday’s announcement appeared likely to continue through the week as aspiring candidates scanned the new landscape and made quick plans for announcements intended to drive off competitors.

Within hours of the special masters’ release, state Sen. Ed Royce (R-Anaheim) said he would run in a proposed new congressional district that straddles the boundary between Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Royce had announced plans to succeed Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), who is campaigning for the U.S. Senate. But Dannemeyer’s previous territory was split between four of the proposed congressional districts.

Brian Bennett, Dornan’s former chief of staff, also said Monday that he will run for Congress in the Santa Ana-based seat if Dornan seeks another district. Bennett said he talked with Dornan Monday and, if the incumbent runs in Santa Ana, he will bid for a seat in Long Beach.

Said Assemblyman Ross Johnson of La Habra, a former Assembly Republican Leader, as he gazed at the wall maps in a Supreme Court conference room: “Individual legislators, Democrats and Republicans are not going to be too happy with the impact on themselves and their reelection prospects.”

But it appeared that more Democrats than Republicans would be complaining once their experts take the court’s nonpartisan demographic information and run it through the Legislature’s computers, which will tabulate how many registered voters of each party are in every district. The numbers are expected to be available today.

“We think we like it--just looking at the lines,” said Joe Shumate, a political consultant who works for Gov. Wilson and other Republicans.

The panel’s first step was to abandon the old districts that favored Democrats, and draw new districts that kept ethnic minority communities together. The masters also appeared to try to keep cities, counties and geographic regions intact.

This differs markedly from the partisan strategy employed nine years ago, when Democrats drew the plans to meet incumbent desires and lame-duck Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed them into law just before leaving office.

Orange County’s booming Latino and Asian populations surrounding Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Westminster were also a major focus of the special masters in drawing districts in the area.

In their written opinion, the special masters said they began carving out six whole Assembly districts for Orange County by first concentrating on a way to maximize Latino voting strength in Santa Ana, central Anaheim and the more ethnic areas of Garden Grove.

The result is that the proposed 69th Assembly District has a Latino population of almost 65% and barely one in four residents is white. Most of that area is now represented by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) and an aide said Monday that the freshman lawmaker is planning to seek the same seat in 1992.

The court masters also drew a second new Assembly seat--renumbered as the 68th--to concentrate the voting strength of other Orange County minorities, especially Asians.

Running along areas now mainly represented by Assemblywoman Allen, the new district would include portions of Garden Grove, western Anaheim and all of Buena Park. Asian population in the new district would be increased to 17%, compared to the 14% currently in Allen’s district.

Asian-American voters are not in sufficient concentration anywhere in the state to assure them a seat of their own, but a San Francisco Assembly district would have a population that is 35% Asian.

The plan falls short of the standards demanded by the Mexican-American Legal and Educational Defense Fund and others. The special masters said they rejected a MALDEF proposal to unite Latino voters because it jumped too many geographic boundaries and split too many cities and counties.

The masters said they rejected three alternative Assembly and congressional plans submitted by the Legislature because of many “misshapen districts which bypass contiguous populated territory to join distant areas of population together.”

The masters praised a plan presented by a bipartisan panel appointed by Gov. Wilson but said that it failed to adequately address the political needs of ethnic minorities, which are protected by the federal Voting Rights Act.

Times staff writers Ralph Frammolino and Mark Gladstone contributed to this story.

Proposed Orange County Congressional Districts

Orange County would compose all or part of six congressional districts instead of five in a new redistricting plan proposed Monday that sent local congressmen scrambling for political advantage. The new plan would create a Latino-Asian district centered in Santa Ana and calls for three districts that extend into Los Angeles, San Bernardino or San Diego counties. Here is a look at how the plan may affect Orange County’s five incumbents.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach): His district would be split in half and he says he must choose between a South Bay district in Los Angeles County or District 45.

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach): Cox’s home base of Newport Beach would be divided into parts of districts 45 and 47. He says he, too, will have to choose.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove): His district would become the heart of the predominantly Latino-Asian District 46, and his aides say he may run in District 45 instead.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton): He has announced for the U.S. Senate, but his hometown would now be part of District 39, shared with Los Angeles County.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside): He would have his south Orange County-San Diego County district mostly intact and is expected to seek reelection in District 48.

Districts 39 and 41, both in the north, lap over into Los Angeles County. The vast majority of the District 48 population, which includes South County, actually lives within San Diego County.