2 Assembly Seats Ripe for Latino Candidates : Politics: The newly created 50th District is the most heavily Latino in the state. Four Latino Democrats are vying to oppose a lone Republican in November.

The 50th has been called the perfect Assembly district for a Latino.

Carved out of Southeast Los Angeles County last year during reapportionment, it is made up of eight small to mid-size, overwhelmingly Latino cities. A majority of the constituents are under 44 years old and working class. Many are recent immigrants who speak little or no English, according to the 1990 Census.

Four Latino Democrats have jumped into the June 2 primary race: Pat Acosta, Virginia R. Belmontez, Martha M. Escutia and Joseph R. Ruiz. With the exception of Belmontez, who ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly in 1986, all are first-time political contenders.

The winner will face Republican Gladys O. Miller in November, but two-thirds of the 58,000 registered voters in the district are Democrats.

The 50th is the most heavily Latino district in the state, with 89% of the 370,000 residents and 55% of the registered voters Latino. Although most Latino adults have not registered to vote, a recent surge in leadership on the district’s city councils has awakened the community to its potential political power.

With shared social, political and cultural networks and all-but-invisible borders, the cities--Bell, Bell Gardens, City of Commerce, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon and some unincorporated areas of Walnut Park and Florence-Graham--have been viewed as one community. In fact, before the 1974 reapportionment, the area was represented by just one assemblyman, Floyd Wakefield.

But for nearly two decades, the area cities were divided between three Assembly districts, represented by members with scattered interests: Teresa P. Hughes represented cities that included Bell, Huntington Park and Cudahy; Marguerite Archie-Hudson had South Gate and the unincorporated area of Walnut Park; and Lucille Roybal-Allard dealt with Maywood, Bell Gardens, the City of Commerce and Vernon. Their constituents were a mix of blacks, Latinos and Anglos from middle- and lower-income households, and many in the Southeast complained that their neighborhoods did not get the attention they needed. In fact, none of the assemblywomen had an office in the area.

As a consequence, the Southeast Coalition proposed its own redistricting plan--which became one of several new districts approved by the state Supreme Court. One of the coalition’s goals was to have the seat filled by a Latino representative.

“For years we have been divided and represented by people who didn’t understand the commonalities between the cities,” said George Cole, a Bell councilman who toyed with the idea of running for the Assembly seat. “For the first time in a long time, we can be a single district with a single Assembly person to represent us.”

The district’s problems are much like those faced by other urban areas: overcrowded schools with high dropout rates, unemployment hovering between 10% and 12%, a soaring gang-related crime rate and residents with little or no health care.

Candidate Escutia, 35, an attorney who was among the core group that helped draw the legislative map last year, blames the area’s history of fragmented representation for the lack of leadership in solving those problems.

“I am going to go out of my way to find the common denominators in the district and solve the problems regionally,” she said.

Escutia and candidate Acosta, 30, are both well-connected with Latino Democrats from Los Angeles. Behind Escutia are state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), Assemblyman Richard Polanco and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre.

Backing Acosta are Rep. Edward R. Roybal, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Assemblywoman Roybal-Allard.

The alliances have generated some talk of “machine politics” in the race. In his campaign mailer, candidate Ruiz, 38, tells voters that he will be “an independent voice” in Sacramento.

“I’m not seeking to use someone else’s power to gain office,” Ruiz said in a telephone interview. He said that the established politicians backing Escutia and Acosta “just want to control the people in the district.”

Others, especially those endorsing one candidate or another, scoff at the notion of empire-building in the 50th District.

“I don’t think that holds any water at all,” Assemblyman Polanco said. “These women are not pawns to anyone.”

Assemblywoman Roybal-Allard agreed, saying that it is insulting to hint that the candidates have been planted by special interests.

“These candidates have made the decision to run on their own,” she said.

And each candidate has an individual approach to the issues facing the Southeast area.

Escutia, a Huntington Park resident who worked for the National Council of La Raza in Washington and now helps set policy for the United Way of Los Angeles, would seek a bigger slice of federal funds to help solve some Southeast problems, especially health care and education.

“I would work to see that federal block grant funds would be appropriated in California,” Escutia said. “We have to combine state and federal support.”

Escutia advocates universal health care coverage. “In California, the Hispanic community is the most uninsured because they tend to be concentrated in low-paying jobs with no benefits,” she said.

Escutia plans to spend about $80,000 on her campaign.

Acosta, a lifelong resident of South Gate, worked as a field deputy for state Sen. Cecil N. Green (D-Norwalk) and was an administrative assistant to Sen. Torres.

Acosta sees better education at the core of solving the region’s problems. Quality schools, she says, would produce better students and better future employees, and that could help the economic development in the area.

“When I see the 60% dropout rate in some of the high schools, I have to ask, ‘Why is that happening?’ I don’t think it’s a language problem. It’s the problem of not giving kids incentives to stay in school,” she said.

A partnership between the business community and the schools, for example, could help prepare students with language, computer skills and other skills valuable to industry, she said.

Acosta says she plans to spend about $100,000 on her campaign.

To candidate Ruiz, the area’s crime rate, especially gang-related crime, “has a huge impact on the quality of life. People are continually being terrorized.”

As an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, Ruiz helped create a “Youth at Risk” program that brings together families of potential gang members with educators, counselors and police officers.

Ruiz blames the educational system for the rise in street gangs.

“Kids aren’t getting a good education here. There is nothing for them left except to go to the streets and live a life of crime,” he said. “The schools have been shortchanged for years. They are overcrowded, the books are old, and most of the funding goes to administration and overhead. That needs to change.”

By mid-March, Ruiz had raised just over $10,000 but declined to estimate how much he would spend on the campaign.

Candidate Belmontez, 61, a South Gate resident and former farm labor activist who says she advocates radical solutions to problems, says her priority is prison reform to solve the rising crime rate. She is endorsed by Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) and by Archie-Hudson.

Belmontez points to the closure of military bases throughout the country and suggests that the prison system use those sites for inmate job training and counseling centers.

“To qualify for the program, the prisoner must keep his nose clean while in prison and leave the anti-social behavior behind,” she said. “This way, we don’t have criminals back out on the street after serving time.”

Belmontez says she will spend about $15,000 on her campaign.

BACKGROUND

The number of Latinos in the Assembly is expected to jump from four to six after the November election, with two new Latino representatives likely to be elected in Southeast Los Angeles County. During the once-a-decade redistricting last fall, a court-appointed panel of judges drew the lines of the 50th and 58th districts to virtually ensure the election of Latinos. The population in the 50th District is 89% Latino, and in the 58th it is 62%. Rival Latino political factions are backing candidates in the all-Latino Democratic primaries of the two districts. Because the districts are predominantly Democratic, the winners of the June 2 primaries are expected to coast to victory in November.

50th Assembly District

Communities: Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Commerce, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate and Vernon.

Population Latino 328,006 89% African-American 8,265 2% Asian 3,519 * Non-Hispanic white 29,727 8% Other 612 * Total 370,129 100%

Party registration Democrat 39,132 66% Republican 13,058 22% American Ind. 752 1% Green 44 * Libertarian 190 * Peace & Freedom 587 * Miscellaneous 130 * Declined to state 4,942 8%

Number of registered voters: 58,835 (as of April 3)

Candidates:

Democrat

Pat Acosta, businesswoman

Virginia R. Belmontez, business owner

Martha M. Escutia, attorney

Joseph R. Ruiz, businessman

Republican

Gladys O. Miller, government employee

* Less than 1%

Source: Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office and Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning.