Appeals Court Clears Way for State Senate Election : Politics: Pre-reapportionment boundaries will be used in the 16th District, which includes part of the Antelope Valley.

A federal appeals court, rejecting a voting rights challenge by Latinos, cleared the way Wednesday for a March 2 special election to fill a vacant state Senate seat representing the 16th District, which includes part of the Antelope Valley and other Los Angeles County areas.

In a 10-page opinion, a panel of the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the election should be held as planned in the district’s pre-reapportionment boundaries, not in the new district created by redistricting, as the Latinos had sought. The older boundaries include a greater percentage of Republican voters, and the new district is predominantly Democratic.

Election officials said it was the first appeals court ruling in California to confirm that they generally can continue their practice of holding such interim elections under pre-redistricting boundaries, despite challenges by minority voters under the federal Voting Rights Act.

The election is being held to fill the seat left vacant when state Sen. Don Rogers (R-Bakersfield), seeing his 16th District dramatically shifted toward Democrats by redistricting, instead sought election last year in the newly created, more heavily Republican 17th District.

Under the court’s ruling, the March 2 election to fill out the remaining two years of Rogers’ term will be held in the original boundaries used for his 1990 election, including the eastern portion of the Antelope Valley, parts of Altadena and Pasadena, and all of Kern and Kings counties.

Redistricting shifted the district’s boundaries north to include parts of Fresno and Madera counties, and made the political makeup of its voters 61% Democratic and 32% Latino. But under the ruling, the new district boundaries will not be used until the next regular district election in 1994.

Upholding a ruling by U. S. District Judge John Davies, the three-justice appeals panel said the old district boundaries should be used in such interim elections unless there is proof of discrimination or discriminatory intent affecting minority voters under the original boundaries.

But the appeals panel said the Latinos did not contend that there was any discriminatory intent behind election officials’ decision to use the old boundaries. And the panel said the Latinos also did not allege discrimination from the redistricting changes, which they in fact supported.