2 Alternate County Redistricting Plans Presented

Los Angeles County Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Gloria Molina submitted proposals today to redraw the supervisors' district boundaries, with both creating a second Latino-majority district, unlike the map recommended by the county's Boundary Review Committee.

Both proposals were submitted just before the 5 p.m. deadline for consideration. They will be reviewed at a public hearing on Sept. 6, along with the committee's recommended plan and an amendment to that plan submitted by Supervisor Don Knabe.

The county is required to redraw boundaries once every 10 years to address populations changes revealed by the U.S. Census. The 2010 federal count showed that Latinos make up 48 percent of the county population, up from 45 percent in 2000, and constitute more than a third of the county's potential voters.

"Our new maps simply follow the numbers," Molina said of both her plan and Ridley-Thomas'. "By doing so, our new maps honor both the letter and the spirit of the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws voting discrimination based on race and serves as the legal foundation of our modern civil rights movement."

Ridley-Thomas' proposal, known as the African-American Coalition Map and referred to in a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors last week as S-1, would radically shift district boundaries, moving 3.5 million residents from one district to another. It would also:

• reconstitute the county's Fourth District, represented by Supervisor Don Knabe, as a district with a Latino voting majority of 52 percent; and
• shift Long Beach and the South Bay to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's Third District;
• remap the First District, which Molina represents, to include parts of the San Fernando Valley, including North Hollywood and part of Valley Village, while leaving Toluca Lake and Studio City in the Third District.

"I have maintained from the start of the redistricting process that our top priority as a board must be to adhere to the federal Voting Rights Act requirements,'' Ridley-Thomas said.

"These requirements were not created abstractly to promote the political dominance of one interest group at the expense of other groups, but to serve all voters fairly. That the maps submitted today ... result in the creation of Latino-opportunity voting districts is purely a consequence of our commitment to abide by the civil rights laws that have undergirded our democracy."

Though Molina's staff confirmed last week that she was supportive of the S-1 plan, she submitted a plan of her own today, saying it "presents a different way to achieve the same objective."

A pdf copy of all three plans is avaiable for viewing at  www.redistricting.lacounty.gov. All three plans are also attached at the right.

However, Molina said the proposal, dubbed the "Voting Rights Compliance Map," is similar to the S1 map in creating two Latino districts and leaving the Second and Fifth districts mostly unchanged. Her map would:

• shift the First District to encompass the core of the San Gabriel Valley;
• reconstitute the Third District to stretch from the San Fernando Valley into downtown Los Angeles and unincorporated East Los Angeles;
• and draw the Fourth District to include all beach cities from Long Beach to Malibu plus some of the hillside communities in the San Fernando Valley.

Molina's plan would also shift the majority of North Hollywood out of the Third District and into the First District, while leaving Toluca Lake, Studio City and Valley Village in the Third.

Without the ability to review Molina's proposed map, it is difficult to assess how dramatic the changes are relative to the S-1 map. She did not say how many residents would change electoral districts under her proposal.

Knabe's seat is the one viewed most at risk under the S-1 map (Yaroslavsky is serving his last term). It may be that Molina's map would allow Knabe to retain a Fourth District seat and instead create a second Latino-opportunity district in the Third District. That could be a critical difference between her plan and S-1, because four supervisorial votes are needed to approve any plan.

"Either map is far preferable to the (Boundary Review Committee- recommended) map currently supported by a majority of my colleagues, which packs the largest concentration of Latinos into one district, then divides the rest into the other four districts," Molina said.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he has "always supported districts that respect geographic boundaries and do not gerrymander communities of interest."

"Many factors should be considered in determining a community of interest and having three plans will afford an opportunity for the public to comment on a variety of configurations of the supervisorial districts," said Antonovich, the board's senior member, having served since 1980.

-- City News Service