Latinos Sue, Charge Bias in Districting by Supervisors

Civil rights attorneys representing Latinos filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday accusing Los Angeles County supervisors of “a history of discrimination” against Latinos in maintaining their present supervisorial boundaries.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California joined in filing the federal court suit, which challenges the makeup of the influential Board of Supervisors, which represents more than 8.5 million people. Lawyers for the two groups said they had intended to file their suit along with a Justice Deparment suit containing similar allegations but were not prepared to wait any longer for federal prosecutors to act.

No Latino has ever served on the five-member board despite their growing numbers in the county. And attorneys for MALDEF and the ACLU charged Wednesday that the current supervisors--all white males--ensured that it would remain that way by approving a 1981 redistricting plan that scattered Latino voters among the supervisorial districts, diluting their voting strength.

‘A Subtle Throwback’

“It is a subtle throwback to an era of racial and ethnic exclusion,” said Mark Rosenbaum, general counsel for the ACLU, who called the board “the most exclusive and the most powerful whites-only club running local government in this country.”

Antonia Hernandez, president and general counsel of MALDEF, said that although Latinos represented 28% of the county population in the 1980 census--a number that is expected to increase in the next census--the Latino community “has been fractured, has been divided and has been gerrymandered.”

Board Chairman Deane Dana was unavailable for comment, but he and other supervisors have consistently defended the 1981 plan and denied allegations that the board had discriminated against Latinos.

Defended by Edelman

When the board was similarly challenged by the Justice Department in May, Supervisor Ed Edelman said, “We did not intend to discriminate and in my judgment we did not.”

Supervisor Pete Schabarum at the same time called the allegations “preposterous.”

The class-action suit, which includes four individual plaintiffs, contends that the 1981 redistricting plan is unconstitutional and violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

“There has been a history of official discrimination in California and in the county of Los Angeles that has denied the Hispanic community equal access to the political process,” the lawsuit claims. Specifically, the suit asks the court to:

- Void the current supervisorial boundaries and bar the county from holding any further elections, including the 1990 supervisorial races, under the current redistricting plan.

- Order an expansion of the board from the current five members to an unspecified number in order to enhance the chances of Latinos and others from “poor communities” to win a supervisorial seat.

- Require the board to develop and implement a new redistricting plan that would include at least one district with a majority of Latino residents.

Yolanda Garza, a 29-year-old chemical engineer from Arcadia and one of the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit reflects a “longstanding desire” for Latinos to win supervisorial representation, contending that the “fragmentation” of Latino voters meant that such issues as employment, housing and health care services were given short shrift by the board.

The assertions that the county is biased against Latinos are similar to the views expressed last May by the Justice Department when it first informed county officials that federal lawyers intended to file a lawsuit aimed at forcing the county to redraw its redistricting lines.

The department, however, has yet to take any legal action, and some lawyers for the Latino plaintiffs criticized the Justice Department for moving too slowly to file suit, although they stopped short of agreeing with those critics who have suggested that there may be a political reluctance to file against the Republican-controlled board.

No Decision Made

Joe Krovisky, a Justice Department spokesman, declined Wednesday to respond to those accusations and said that no decision has been made on whether to file a lawsuit.

“We have no comment on anything that was said at that news conference other than that our decision will be made independently and we still have the whole matter under consideration,” Krovisky said, speaking by telephone from Washington.

Los Angeles County voters have rejected two previous efforts--in 1962 and 1976--to expand the number of board members. And supervisors recently rejected efforts by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn to place the measure back before the voters on the November ballot. Hahn said Wednesday that expanding the board to seven would be “the logical way” to create a Latino district and could avoid a long and costly legal battle over redistricting.

Richard Fajardo, the lead attorney in the redistricting suit, said Wednesday that MALDEF will provide some suggested boundaries to county officials, who have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit.