Districting Hurts Latinos, U.S. Says : Justice Department Suit Accuses L.A. of Diluting Hispanics’ Political Power

The Justice Department accused the City of Los Angeles on Tuesday of “fracturing” the growing political influence of Latino voters through a “history of official discrimination” and filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the city’s 1982 council redistricting plan.

The civil complaint, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, names Mayor Tom Bradley, 13 current City Council members and City Clerk Elias Martinez as defendants.

It alleges that their reapportionment plan violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bars any practice or procedure that abridges a person’s voting rights.

The Justice Department contends that the redistricting plan--approved unanimously by the City Council in September, 1982--diluted the strength of Latino voters and violated their rights under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the voting rights provisions of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution.

New Plan Sought

The suit asks the court to order the City Council to produce a new reapportionment plan and require the city to submit all redistricting plans over the next 10 years either to the Justice Department or the federal court for approval.

The controversial reapportionment plan was undertaken as a result of the 1980 Census, which showed that the city’s Latino population had grown to 27%, from 18% a decade earlier. That plan retained most of the existing voting district lines that had been assailed for years by Latino and Asian activists. No Latino has served on the City Council since 1962.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit follows a 1984 report by the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that was sharply critical of the plan.

Critics of the plan on Tuesday hailed the lawsuit, while city officials said they will challenge the court action.

The Reagan Administration has filed similar voting rights lawsuits against city officials in New York and Chicago. Robert C. Bonner, U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said the civil suit that he filed here seeks to void the redistricting plan and require the City Council to produce a new plan.

‘Fracturing’ Cited

In its lawsuit here, the Justice Department claims that “the fracturing of the Hispanic communities” occurred after council members and the mayor rejected alternative proposals that may have increased Latino representation on the 15-member City Council.

But city officials disputed the allegations.

“I’m really surprised and disappointed with that because we did a very careful and conscientious job with that reapportionment plan,” said Council President Pat Russell, who said she learned of the lawsuit in a telephone call from Bonner.

She said several public hearings were held to study all the plans and a number of community groups eventually sided with the council’s choice of redistricting lines. Russell also disputed charges that there was any discrimination of ethnic groups during that process.

City Atty. James K. Hahn, also alerted in a brief call from Bonner, said, “We believe that our redistricting was fair and that it complied with the law and we intend to vigorously defend it.”

Bradley is in the Far East on a trade mission, but Deputy Mayor Tom Houston said Bradley shared the lawsuit’s goal of greater Latino representation on the council. But Houston said he was surprised at the legal action.

“I think that we would fight any attempt to show that there has been purposeful discrimination because I don’t think the record will show that there has been purposeful discrimination (by the city),” he said.

Support of Measure Noted

Houston noted that Bradley and other city officials had supported a ballot measure that would have expanded the City Council from 15 to 17 members as a way to increase minority representation. But voters rejected the proposal earlier this year.

The Justice Department lawsuit was signed by William Bradford Reynolds, the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, and by other department attorneys.

It calls on U.S. District Judge James Ideman to enjoin the city from holding any election that involved the redistricting plan.

But city officials said they do not expect the federal government to block the Dec. 10 election to fill the vacant 14th Council District, which includes the largely Latino area on the Eastside. The district--the city’s only one with a Latino majority--has been without a councilman since longtime incumbent Arthur K. Snyder resigned in October. Six of the seven candidates are Latino.

Snyder, who served on the council during the adoption of the redistricting plan, and Councilman Michael Woo, who was elected last June, are not named in the lawsuit.

Philip Montez, director of the Western regional office of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said, “The Justice Department is quite conservative in deciding cases to pursue. They usually consider it a very good case when they decide to file. We’re very excited about this.”

Latinos Called Elated

Deputy Mayor Grace Montanez Davis, who served on the commission’s advisory committee that reviewed the city’s reapportionment plan, said she received a number of calls Tuesday from Latinos who were elated at the news of the lawsuit.

“Unfortunately, in order to get our foot in the door, it takes this kind of court action to do it,” Davis said.

The suit, filed after months of investigation, alleges that the redistricting plan was “effectuated for the purpose, and with the result of, avoiding the higher Hispanic percentages in certain districts that would be the logical result of drawing district boundaries on a non-racial basis.”

Referring to the 1980 Census, the complaint notes that despite the rise in Latino population in Los Angeles, no Latino sits on the City Council. And it says that with the exception of Rep. Edward Roybal, who left the council to run for Congress, “no person of Spanish origin has been elected to the Los Angeles City Council since at least 1900.”

“There has been a history of official discrimination by the State of California and the City of Los Angeles against Hispanic residents of the city,” the suit alleges. “Such discrimination has included discrimination touching on the right of Spanish-speaking and other language minorities to register, vote and participate in the political process.”

The complaint contends that the 1982 redistricting plan divided an expanding “core” concentration of Latinos surrounding the downtown area and scattered them among seven of the 15 council districts.

In drawing up the district lines, the lawsuit claims, the city “deviated from its announced criteria of drawing compact districts that respect communities of interest.” The result, the lawsuit notes, was that the political impact of a large concentration of Latinos in the Pacoima area was blunted by excluding some of those majority Latino voting tracts adjacent to Sun Valley and creating a councilmanic district that is predominantly Anglo.