Huge Crowds Rally to Debate County Redistricting

More than 850 people crowded into the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors hearing and overflow rooms today as the board listened to arguments for and against three proposals to redraw the supervisors' district boundaries, two of which would create a second Latino- majority district.

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

The proposal recommended by the county's Boundary Review Committee is opposed by Supervisors Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas, each of whom submitted plans last month to establish a second Latino-majority district that would radically shift the boundaries of existing districts and shift about 3.5 million people between districts. Both of those plans would move the majority of and out of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's 3rd District.

"Our new maps simply follow the numbers," Molina said at that time of
both her plan and that of Ridley-Thomas. "By doing so, our new maps honor both the letter and the spirit of the Voting Rights Act."

Ridley-Thomas' proposal is known as the Community Empowerment Plan or S2 and Molina's as the Voting Rights Compliant Plan or T1.

"Either map is far preferable to the (Boundary Review Committee) map [A3] 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.

More than 350 people, including several elected officials, signed up to testify at Tuesday's hearing.

"I've never seen anything like this,'' county spokesman David Sommers said of the crowd.

Those opposed to the creation of a second Latino-majority district argued that those plans destroy other important communities of interest and relationships that have been cultivated over many years.

Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, sided with many environmentalists dismayed that the Santa Monica Mountains would be divided between districts under plans T1 and S2.

"[Those plans] shred the successful relationships of cooperation and trust that have been built up over the years," said Brownley in a letter read by an aide.

Others said that S2 and T1 amounted to gerrymandering on behalf of Latino voters and that race should not be the basis for mapping county districts.

"We must all represent each other, regardless of race,'' said Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Thomas Long.

However, those who supported of a second Latino-majority district argued that the A3 plan was inherently unfair and maintains what it called the status quo.

"The redistricting should be fair to all people," said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. "The status quo is unacceptable."

Said Monsignor John Moretta of Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights: "No matter what your vote, Latinos will not go away. [S2] does not mandate a Latino supervisor, it just levels the playing field."

Both sides have threatened lawsuits.

Some raised the specter of Garza vs. the County of Los Angeles, which generated a 1990 ruling that the Latino community had been denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process, forcing the county to redraw its district boundaries. Those new maps resulted in Molina's election. She was the first Latina to serve on the board.

However, Supervisor Don Knabe, whose seat is threatened by the
redistricting, has said he believes that other non-Latino groups are prepared to sue in the event a second Latino-majority district is created.

Another public hearing on the matter is scheduled for Sept. 27, so a decision was not made today.

Ultimately, the votes of four supervisors are needed to approve any plan. Supervisors Yaroslavsky and Don Knabe have both expressed their strong opposition to Molina's and Ridley-Thomas' plans.

If the supervisors cannot agree on a plan, the decision will go to a committee comprised of District Attorney Steve Cooley, County Assessor John Noguez and Sheriff Lee Baca.

"It would be premature for the sheriff to weigh in on this at this time," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore when asked for Baca's
perspective. "He has the utmost confidence in the board's ability to work this out."

-- City News Service