Supervisors to Consider Putting Expansion on Ballot

The year was 1885. Los Angeles County, with 67,416 residents, was less populous than Omaha, Neb., and was governed by a five-member Board of Supervisors.

Today, 107 years later, the county has a population of 8.8 million--more than many states. And it is still governed by five supervisors.

But that soon may go the way of the orange groves and the rancheros.

Proposed June ballot measures to enlarge the board to seven or nine members will come before supervisors today, along with other major reforms such as ethics rules for county officials and election of a county mayor.

Supervisors also will consider placing on the ballot maps of the proposed seven and nine districts, from which two or four more supervisors will be elected in 1994--if voters approve board expansion.

Expansion would further shake up the board, a previously all-white, all-male enclave that was joined last year--and only after a voting rights lawsuit--by its first Latino, Gloria Molina. A black woman is expected to be elected this year to succeed retiring Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

Expansion is aimed at creating a board that more closely mirrors the county’s ethnic diversity, while increasing representation for all residents by reducing a supervisor’s constituency, now about 1.8 million residents--twice the population of San Francisco.

The main backer of the expansion plans is Hahn. But both plans have drawn criticism from civil rights groups, which have expressed concern that passage could weaken the political influence of blacks and Latinos and again plunge the county into costly voting rights litigation.

The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund--which won a 1990 voting rights lawsuit against the county--has warned that expansion of the board to seven members would erode the political power that Latinos gained in that legal action.

For example, Latinos make up 72% of the population and 48% of the voters in Molina’s 1st District. Under the proposed seven-district plan, Latinos would make up 72% of the population but only 40% of the voters of the new, smaller 1st District that would extend from East Los Angeles to the northeast San Fernando Valley. Much of the rest of what is now the 1st District would be reborn as a new San Gabriel Valley-based 7th District, where Latinos would make up less of the population--63%--and 42% of the voters.

“Latinos, based on numbers alone, have less of an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice under the proposed seven-district plan,” said Nancy Ramirez, an attorney for MALDEF.

However, MALDEF has raised no objections to enlarging the board to nine members, which the group believes probably would lead to the election of a second Latino supervisor.

County attorneys who have reviewed the legal aspects of the proposals contend that a second Latino could also be elected to the board under the seven-district plan. In response to MALDEF objections to expanding the board to seven, they note that Latinos have won election to other offices from districts where the ethnic group makes up even smaller percentages of the population and voters.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund also has expressed concern that both maps--as presently drawn--could weaken the political influence of blacks.

With state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) and former Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke front-runners in the 2nd District race to succeed the retiring Hahn, the board this year is likely to get its first elected black supervisor.

County attorneys contend that the two plans preserve the 2nd District centered in South Los Angeles for a black supervisor, and also increase black voting strength in another district--the proposed new 6th.

The controversy over the two plans is emerging as a campaign issue between Burke--who was an appointed member of the board for nearly 18 months ending in 1980--and Watson.

“I am going to ask that the board defeat both plans,” Watson said Monday. Contending that both plans weaken black political influence, she said she will appear at the board meeting today to urge supervisors to “go back to the drawing board.”

Burke, head of the citizens’ committee that drafted the proposed plans, said Monday that two Latinos and two blacks could be elected to the board under the proposed nine-district plan.