Latinos Rise Up in the Rust Belt : The real issue in Bell Gardens and elsewhere is the expansion of suffrage, not just voter registration.

There is a new fire burning in Los Angeles’ traditional industrial heartland. The recall of four Anglo City Council members in Bell Gardens signals an emerging Latino determination to achieve majority rule in the blue-collar suburbs that straddle the Long Beach Freeway from Vernon to South Gate.

Here, in our own “rust belt,” the social fabric has changed radically over the last generation. The old, unionized heavy-industry economy, fatally wounded by cheap imports, has been replaced by light-industry sweatshops. Real hourly wage and median family income levels have fallen by half since 1970. At the same time, there has been an extraordinary ethnic recomposition as 204,000 Anglos have moved out and 328,000 Latinos--primarily Mexican immigrants--have moved in.

Despite the dramatic population increase in this so-called Hub Cities region, the active electorate over the last decade has fluctuated at only about half of its 1960-’70 levels. Moreover, a geriatric Anglo residue--ranging from 13% in South Gate to 5% in Maywood--has continued to hold the balance of municipal power despite the rise of overwhelming Latino majorities. Until last year, when two Latinos were elected in Huntington Park, one-third of a million Spanish-surname residents were left virtually without representation in local government.

This “rotten borough” system, based on atrophied democracy and the white bloc vote, has allowed small, powerful cliques to monopolize local government.

In Huntington Park, for example, the same five “good ol’ boys” on the city council (with one substitution) ran the city without effective competition from 1970 to 1990, while in Bell Gardens, Claude Booker (“King Claude” to his opponents)--serving variously as councilman, mayor and now, as city manager--has been the dominant figure for almost a quarter of a century.

With minimum public accountability, city hall cliques have exploited redevelopment law to eliminate “fiscal burdens” (like low-income apartments), subsidize new “tax assets” (like poker casinos) and, sometimes, lavishly feather their own nests (the former mayor of Bell, who went to prison for secretly holding shares in the city’s casino).

If the first significant Latino gains were won without clamor last year in Huntington Park, Bell Gardens was ripe for a loud explosion. Although the city of 43,000 is the third poorest suburb in the nation, it possesses a golden goose in the form of the giant Bicycle Club poker casino, with an annual gross profit of $100 million.

Latinos have long been upset by the city’s aggressive use of Bicycle Club revenue to finance commercial redevelopment that has torn down hundreds of residential units. When the council--whose members were elected by less than 2% of the population--adopted a rezoning map last December that mandated the eventual removal of an additional 300 to 400 “nonconforming” units, open rebellion broke out.

The stunning, unexpected victory of the recall forces, especially their success in registering 1,500 new Latino voters, may well herald a dramatic acceleration of ethnic succession in cities where Anglo power defies demographics. Yet at the same time, it is important to acknowledge the relatively constricted, and conservative, social base of the Bell Gardens movement.

Interviews with participants, as well as careful analysis of financial disclosure statements, reveal the dominant role of Latino small landlords--a stratum 500 to 600 strong in Bell Gardens--in organizing the recall. Moreover, the triumphant No Rezoning Committee received the bulk of its financial support, at least $35,000, from wealthy, absentee Anglo apartment owners angry about the city’s proposed downzoning of their property. The true silent majority in Bell Gardens--the 80% of the population who are low-income immigrant renters--played, at best, a minor supporting role in the recall mobilization.

Indeed, in a region where about 50% to 60% of the adult residents do not yet possess citizen rights, it should not be surprising that “Latino power” often takes the narrow form of ascendant small-business and landlord groups.

In Huntington Park, for example, the two elected Latino members of the council (a third is an appointee), are political conservatives, and one has particularly strong ties to the check-cashing industry.

No wonder Republicans consider the old industrial belt an ideal terrain for finally implementing their much-vaunted “Latino strategy.”

My point is not to belittle the electoral breakthrough in Bell Gardens, or to imply that it must necessarily stop at the border of the Latino middle class. But empowerment is a big word, often loosely used. An authentic democratic revolution in these gritty suburbs must take account of the majority’s class interests as well as its ethnic identity. The fight for electoral inclusion must also begin to challenge poverty and exploitation. But the immigrant working class cannot afford to wait a generation to slowly accumulate voting rights.

A more audacious perspective is both necessary and possible. The real issue in Bell Gardens and elsewhere is the expansion of suffrage, not just voter registration.

As in other states, the California Constitution leaves open the possibility of a residential franchise. Indeed, non-citizen property owners already exercise the vote in some special assessment districts. Why not extend this right to all resident adults in school board and city council elections?