PERSPECTIVE ON LATINO POLITICS : A Power Fight That’s Weakening Us : The split between Molina and the old guard threatens to leave the community voiceless at a time of grave crisis.

The split between the political groups of Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, on one side, and State Sen. Art Torres and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, on the other, is hurting the Chicano/Mexicano community’s struggle for justice. They ought to put aside their differences in the interest of our community.

The split is rooted in the history of the Democratic Party’s poor record of support for our community, especially our demands for equal representation. In the early 1970s, this led to the development of an alternative party, La Raza Unida. Since then, Chicanos have found a measure of success in mainstream politics. However, even as our top elected officials have supported many grass-roots efforts, they have often acted as apologists for the Democratic Party’s failings and have sometimes worked against the community’s expressed interests.

As brokers in the Democratic Party, Chicano elected officials have often been an obstacle to independent representation. They have traditionally controlled the process by agreeing among themselves on candidates, usually cronies or proteges.

For many people, the role of broker and party apologist obscures merit. Torres has probably the best record in the Legislature on progressive causes like health, education and workers’ and immigrants’ rights, and he has considerable trade-union and community support. But his record was not much protection in his 1991 effort to become the first Latino on the Board of Supervisors. In fact, Molina used his stature against him, casting him as an “insider” and herself as a new voice from the grass roots.

Molina, a founder of La Comision Femenil, the most important Chicana organization in Los Angeles, came up the Democratic Party ranks just like the other elected officials. But when she decided it was her turn, she took it, despite some opposition from the Establishment. In bitter campaigns, she defeated her former mentors and allies and made history as the first Chicana member of the Assembly, then as the first Chicana on the Los Angeles City Council. In defeating Torres, she scored a double first: the first woman elected to the Board of Supervisors and the first member of Mexican ancestry.

As she developed a reputation as a fierce independent, Molina became known as an active supporter of grass-roots causes. Her support of the movement to preserve the Mexican cultural integrity of Olvera Street and her leadership of the movement against the construction of a prison in East Los Angeles were crucial and brought her a reputation as a populist leader.

While she is a liberal, Molina’s politics often take conservative turns. As a councilwoman, she gave uncritical support to the police and Chief Daryl Gates, and her positions on police dealings with immigrants were unpopular among immigrants’ rights activists. Her relations with local trade unions can best be described as cold. That, however, has made no difference among many of her progressive supporters and allies. Her populist posture and her willingness to take on Alatorre, Torres and Assemblyman Richard Polanco have made her the standard bearer of activists fighting for control of the electoral front. Among the defectors from the old Establishment now on Molina’s side are two Eastside members of Congress, Edward Roybal and Esteban Torres, and two winners in the June 2 congressional primary, State Sen. Lucille Roybal Allard and Assemblyman Xavier Becerra.

What started out as a movement for fair representation has become a high-stakes power struggle largely devoid of true debate on community concerns. On June 2, we had contests between factions, not candidates running on issues or even ideology. Independents now have less chance than ever.

The split is so bitter and personal that several Latino elected officials have not spoken with each other for months--in some cases for years. This is affecting our community’s leadership and its capacity to respond to crisis. While the struggle for police reform raged after the beating of Rodney King, the factions never met to discuss a position on police issues, nor was there a united Latino response to the uprising in our city. Except for Councilman Mike Hernandez’s efforts in his district, we were voiceless during the crisis.

Just as alarming, the factionalism is filtering down and adversely affecting grass-roots activism in the Chicano/Mexicano community.

It’s hard to remember when there have been so many crucial issues demanding immediate leadership and unity in our community: the efforts to rebuild and reshape Los Angeles, police reforms, reapportionment and the initiative to expand the Board of Supervisors, representation of the disenfranchised Latino neighborhoods of South L.A. and Pico-Union, and the need for dialogue with the African-American community on those issues.

Who is big enough to make the first call to unity?