City Council Backs Redistricting Plan : Politics: The tentative approval, on a 9-4 vote, draws threat of a suit from a group which says the map protects incumbents at the expense of Latinos.

A redistricting map that would give hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents different City Council members was tentatively approved Thursday, despite warnings by a civil rights group that it protects incumbents while violating Latino voting rights and could plunge the city into costly litigation.

A bitterly divided City Council approved the new district boundaries 9 to 4 after a contentious debate that highlighted a struggle between African-Americans and Latinos for political power.

Attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who have attacked the jigsaw-shaped map as an “incumbent protection plan,” said that if it receives final approval they will probably file a suit similar to the one brought against the county. That suit led to court-ordered remapping that culminated in the election of Supervisor Gloria Molina after a court fight that cost taxpayers $12 million.

“It’s illegal,” MALDEF attorney Vibiana Andrade said of the map, contending that it violates the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits splitting up minority blocs of voters.

The map, which critics say preserves the status quo for city lawmakers, nonetheless puts 650,000 of the city’s 3.5 million residents in different districts. The council is required to redistrict to reflect population changes recorded in the 1990 Census.

MALDEF attorneys said the plan denies Latinos an opportunity to elect two more Latino council members. Latinos account for about 40% of the city’s population, but only two Latinos serve on the 15-member council.

“This plan will make sure that the have-nots cannot become the haves,” protested Councilman Mike Hernandez, who was joined in voting against the plan by the council’s other Latino, Richard Alatorre, and council members Ruth Galanter and Joel Wachs.

Alatorre added, “We are denying citizens . . . their rightful say in the political process. . . . That is an injustice. That is discrimination.” Alatorre said that if the council gives final approval to the plan next week, he will ask Mayor Tom Bradley to veto it. A Bradley spokesman said the mayor had no comment on the council action.

Councilman Nate Holden, who is black, responded to Alatorre, “You know, and I know, that a lot of people in this community are not legal residents, which means they cannot vote.” He asserted that voter registration, not redistricting, is the key to increasing the political influence of Latinos, who make up 11% of the city’s registered voters.

Supporters of the plan said it carves out Latino majorities in the districts of San Fernando Valley Councilman Ernani Bernardi and Hollywood Councilman Mike Woo. Bernardi plans to retire next year; Woo is a likely mayoral candidate.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, who is black, said, “I would not knowingly participate in a strategy to deny any group participation in the political process.”

But MALDEF contended that the plan makes it possible for a Latino to succeed only Bernardi in the redrawn 7th District, where Latinos make up 70% of the population and 31% of the voters. MALDEF says Latinos constitute only 24% of the voters in Woo’s new 13th District, making it unlikely that a Latino could be elected there for years.

MALDEF urged the council to approve an alternative map that fashions a district west of downtown where Latinos would make up more than 50% of eligible voters, according to an estimate by MALDEF’s demographer, Prof. Leo Estrada of UCLA.

Supporters of the council’s plan, however, said they could not draw lines based on estimates, but would consider remapping again if the Census Bureau releases citizenship figures showing that Latinos would constitute a majority of eligible voters in the proposed MALDEF district.

Council President John Ferraro said the MALDEF map drew objections from African-American groups because it would have stripped Walters of coveted parts of downtown and given them to Alatorre and Hernandez.

“We do not have the right or power to maximize one group over another,” Ferraro said.

Holden contended that the fight over downtown had nothing to do with voting rights. “Downtown is where you have high-rises, hotels, office buildings. People don’t live in those buildings. . . . When you talk about dividing up downtown, you’re talking about dividing up the pie from an economic standpoint.”

MALDEF asserted that its plan protected the three black council members.

The council plan also drew objections from a wide range of other groups, from the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans for Fair Reapportionment, which objected to splintering Koreatown between two council districts, to homeowner associations from across the city, which objected to fragmenting their neighborhoods among districts.

MALDEF previously sued the City Council over redistricting. The council in 1986 settled out of court by drawing a plan that led to a second council district with a Latino majority.