Quezada’s Proposal for Non-Citizen Voting Assailed : Education: Blacks question school board member’s motives over plan to allow immigrants to cast ballots.

Calling it an insult to blacks’ struggle for voting rights, members of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Black Education Commission met Thursday with school board member Leticia Quezada to voice concerns about a motion supporting the right of non-citizens to vote in school board elections.

Quezada, who introduced the motion in December, invited commission representatives to meet with her after she received a letter from the group criticizing the proposal. The motion, which is scheduled for a vote Feb. 18, calls on the board to support in principle the right of parents to vote in school board elections, regardless of their citizenship status.

Approval of the motion would be largely symbolic because the action would likely require legislative approval. But several black educators and commission members said they were troubled by its implications and questioned Quezada’s motives.

“I don’t think we as citizens should just be expected to hand over something we fought for, that we died for,” commission co-chairwoman Madra Reeves said in reference to blacks’ struggles for the right to vote. “(And) why didn’t (this motion) come up before now? . . . This has nothing to do with children. (Quezada) is trying to broaden her base.”

But Quezada, who is serving her second term on the board, denied that she has ulterior motives in seeking support for the proposal.

“This motion is not about Latinos,” said Quezada, who does not face reelection until 1995. “This motion is not about any ethnicity. It’s about parent empowerment.”

Non-citizens already exercise voting rights in several cities and states. In Chicago and New York City, parents who are not citizens are allowed to elect school representatives, and in Takoma Park, Md., non-citizens may vote in municipal elections. Several states, including Texas and Georgia, allow non-citizens to vote under special circumstances.

Quezada’s motion, if approved, would be only the first step in a lengthy process, district officials said. District staff members would be directed to determine how voting by non-citizens could occur in the 1993 school board elections, but district legal adviser Ron Apperson said that “at a minimum,” state laws would probably have to be changed.

Members of the Black Education Commission, which is one of several advisory groups to the board, said that although they agreed that all parents should have a say in their children’s education, such opportunities are available to non-citizens through school-based management councils. They added that immigrants should seek citizenship if they want to participate in the electoral process, and said they were concerned that black political power would be diluted if Latinos who are not citizens are allowed to vote.

“We support parent empowerment,” said Herbert Alan Jones of the Alliance of African-American Educators. “Our concern is the disenfranchisement of the black community in terms of political power. What do you think would happen to the black vote, to black participation on the board if this comes to pass?”

Parent Sigifredo Lopez told Black Education Commission members that he was “offended because you think we are taking something away from you. We don’t need to take anything. In this district, we’re the majority and we’re going to keep growing. . . . Why don’t we come together and form one force, one strength?”

Reeves then criticized Lopez, saying that it was hypocritical of him to speak of unity when he chose to make his comments in Spanish. “I do not appreciate you talking about the need for dialogue when I know you speak English,” Reeves said before storming out of the room.

Genethia Hayes, a representative of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said she was mainly concerned that the board would study a policy it cannot implement--particularly when it faces many problems that are within its control.