Redistricting Could Put Ethnic Majority in Control of Council

As Los Angeles’ population center shifts, so does its political core--an unsettling development for Westside politicians who have been part of the city’s traditional power base.

The new political reality could, for the first time, put an ethnic majority in charge of the City Council through this year’s redistricting and reduce Westside representation from three council members to two.

Venice Councilwoman Ruth Galanter could find herself a sacrificial lamb in such a scenario, her 6th District dismembered to satisfy racial and population considerations driving the current redistricting, according to council members and demographers who have studied the issue.

“I think Galanter is in real trouble,” said Frank Juarez-Foster, whose redistricting proposal for the L. A. Crusaders community group would keep Galanter on the Westside. “Some people would like to carve up her district.”

The proposal to move Galanter from her home turf has been one early focus of redistricting, the decennial redrawing of political boundaries to conform to new census data. Demographers, community groups and City Council members--who must approve new boundaries by July 1--have also weighed a host of other issues in hearings that concluded Tuesday: the potential creation of Latino-controlled council seats in the San Fernando Valley and near downtown, the black community’s fight to maintain control of three council seats and the potential uprooting of other council members.

Talk of displacing a sitting council member has inspired anxiety around City Hall, where preserving incumbency is a singular preoccupation.

Not since the early 1960s--when Councilman John Cassidy’s downtown ward was collapsed and moved into the San Fernando Valley--has a council member been moved to a district in another part of the city.

With nearly three months remaining before the City Council must approve new boundaries, however, Galanter’s fate is far from set. The second-term councilwoman vows to fight for her home turf, which stretches from Venice, Playa del Rey and Westchester east to the Crenshaw district.

“I would hate to lose the people who I have represented,” Galanter said. “And I will not lose them quietly.”

The councilwoman’s predicament is a result of the changing demographics of Los Angeles.

An influx of Latino and Asian immigrants has pushed the city’s population up 17% to nearly 3.5 million in the last decade, with most of the growth in the east San Fernando Valley, Eastside and downtown. Latinos have emerged as the single largest ethnic group, with nearly 40% of the population, compared to 37% for whites, 13% for blacks and 10% for Asians.

Under the federal Voting Rights Act, the city must recognize burgeoning ethnic communities by creating council districts where minorities have a strong chance of electing candidates of their choosing.

That means that the City Council may create three, or possibly four, Latino seats, instead of the current two on the 15-member council. At the same time, council members say they would like to protect the three seats already occupied by members of the black community, which has a shrinking percentage of the population but votes more often than other minority groups.

The Westside, meanwhile, finds itself with relatively less of the city’s population.

The 1990 census showed that the 5th, 6th and 11th council districts are from 20,000 to 30,000 residents short of the 232,000 population standard used to divide the city equally into 15 council districts.

Galanter’s 6th District is squeezed by both ethnic and population politics.

Black political leaders covet the east end of her territory--the Crenshaw district neighborhoods viewed as a seedbed of black wealth and political activism--while neighboring white council members could use the remainder of her district to shore up population shortages of their own.

“Ruth is vulnerable because of the fragments that make up her district,” said Leo Estrada, principal demographer for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Her district isn’t cohesive.”

Leaders of the influential organization--whose lawsuit last year forced the creation of a Latino seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors--have said that dissolving the 6th District would be one way of resolving the ethnic and population issues.

“It’s the easiest way of solving the problems,” though it would be preferable to find a map that protects incumbents, Estrada said.

If the 6th District were collapsed, Westside communities like Venice, Westchester and Playa del Rey now in Galanter’s district could be annexed to Councilman Marvin Braude’s 11th District or Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky’s 5th District to shore up the population shortages.

And the Crenshaw district would be joined to the districts of two black councilmen, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Nate Holden.

With Galanter’s current turf eliminated, her district could be redrawn in downtown Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley, in order to create one of the new Latino seats.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s north San Fernando Valley district and Councilwoman Rita Walters’ district, which begins downtown and stretches south, are also potential fodder for creating seats where Latinos would have considerable influence. Both districts already have heavy Latino populations, although redrawing of Bernardi’s 7th District may be more likely, because he has announced plans to retire next year.

Council members may be comfortable tampering with the fate of Galanter, who has alienated some colleagues with her iconoclastic style and obsession with detail. If she is moved, the City Charter would permit her to represent the new district until the end of her current term, in 1995. Her reelection chances in a new part of the city would be slim, many fellow council members say privately.

Galanter’s struggle for survival could hinge on the Crenshaw district. The predominantly black enclave constitutes a third of the population in the 6th District and, if taken away, could leave so small a district that the remainder might be collapsed, Estrada and others said.

Some leaders in the black community say Crenshaw’s affluent Baldwin Hills residential community and the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza shopping center are more logically tied to black council districts than Galanter’s mostly Anglo coastal ward.

“It makes for a more equitable distribution of the city’s resources, so that each district can more handsomely benefit,” Ridley-Thomas said. “It benefits the empowerment of the African-American community broadly defined.”

Officials at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund also say they can see advantages in such a shift, but they have declined to take a final position on where they propose placing the Crenshaw district.

Galanter said her nearly 70% vote total in winning a second term last June affirms her popularity. The councilwoman, a Democrat, won 64 of 69 precincts in the Crenshaw district, facing a black Republican challenger.

She argues that her representation of the Crenshaw area effectively gives the black community a fourth vote on the City Council. “If you represent a diverse constituency,” she said, “it tends to make you more concerned with the realities of the world and more sensitive to other groups.”

Galanter isn’t the only council member feeling the redistricting heat.

In one scenario, Councilman Michael Woo’s district would be moved east from along the Hollywood Hills to the predominantly Latino territory west of downtown.

The district is considered vulnerable because Woo is widely expected to run for mayor next year, which would mean giving up his council seat.

The prospect of an attempt to move his district is enough to worry Woo, who is not ready to commit to the mayoral race or to give up his safe home turf.

“Yes, it’s a possibility,” Woo said of an attempt to move his district. “When it comes to reapportionment, it’s every man and woman for himself.

“Right now, I’m just trying to make more friends than enemies.”