Davis OKs Redistricting That Keeps Status Quo

Gov. Gray Davis on Thursday signed redistricting plans that protect the state’s incumbent legislators and members of Congress, extending Democratic control of the state’s delegations for the next 10 years.

As “urgency” legislation, the measures became law immediately upon Davis’ signature, a device that immunized them from a referendum challenge that could throw the issue to the state Supreme Court.

“The maps produced this year are fair and balanced,” Davis said.

But while the redistricting bills pleased both Democratic and Republican incumbents because they cement the partisan alignments in the Legislature and congressional delegation, political outsiders did not share in the joy.

Officials of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the California Latino Redistricting Coalition said they would work to undo provisions, approved by the governor, that allegedly weaken Latino political power.

Amadis Valez of MALDEF and Alan Clayton of the coalition charged that under the new configuration, Latinos will be unable to elect a candidate of their choice in some areas, in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act for minorities.

“The Latino community feels very strongly that they have been victims of a lot of political deals and their voice has been lost,” Valez said.

Clayton said his Los Angeles-based organization will petition the U.S. Department of Justice to challenge the design of several legislative and congressional districts.

He said the oddly shaped districts on the new maps violate voting rights law by ignoring various communities of interest.

“They missed voting rights opportunities,” Clayton said of the Legislature’s map makers. “This will hurt Latinos, African Americans and . . . Asian Americans.”

Both groups cited as injurious to Latinos the splitting of the Latino community in the San Fernando Valley between the congressional districts of Democrats Howard Berman and Brad Sherman.

Under the required once-a-decade readjustment of political districts, Democrats will maintain their current 32-20 hold over the GOP in the state’s current congressional delegation. The additional district awarded to California because of population growth is expected to elect a Latino Democrat. Though it will be the state’s 53rd, the southeast Los Angeles County district has been assigned the number 39, in keeping with the pattern of such numbers rising from north to south.

The state Senate’s lineup of 26 to 14 and the Assembly’s 50-30 alignment will also hold, barring huge upsets, until 2011.

Traditionally in California, redistricting is a nasty behind-the-scenes battle as the majority party seeks to enhance its membership and the minority party scratches for what little it can get.

But this time, the parties made a deal in which each would keep the same proportion it won in last year’s elections. Democrats would not seek to expand their membership and minority Republicans would be assured of shrinking no further.

Democrats wanted a bill that was referendum-proof, meaning it would need Republican support to win the two-thirds majority necessary for it to take effect immediately as an urgency law.

There was ample precedent for their concern: Ten years ago, a remapping dispute landed in the state high court, which redrew the plan.

Although the restricting bills became law only Thursday, their impact has already been felt in the political careers of veteran Reps. Gary Condit (D-Ceres) and Steve Horn (R-Long Beach).

Horn, a moderate who has barely won reelection in a Democratic-leaning district, announced his retirement early this month when map makers in the Legislature moved his home and most of Long Beach into a district now represented by Democrat Juanita Millender-McDonald of Carson.

In the northern San Joaquin Valley, Condit has been under increasing pressure not to run for reelection next year, from leaders of his own party concerned about his relationship with missing Washington intern Chandra Levy.

In the plan, party leaders all but wrote him off, redesigning his conservative Democratic district to reach far north into heavier Democratic territory in Stockton and stretching it south to Fresno to pick up more Democrats.

In doing so, Democratic leaders enhanced the possibility that another Democrat will challenge Condit, who has not said whether he will run again.