Decision time for L.A. County

One way or another, history is likely to be made on Tuesday, September 27, at a momentous hearing to determine Los Angeles County’s political boundary lines for the decade to come.

Hundreds are expected to turn out for a final public airing of the competing redistricting plans that have sharply divided the Board of Supervisors in recent weeks. The plans known as T1 and S2 would radically redraw the boundary lines to create a district in which Latinos make up a majority of the citizen voting age population. The proposals would shift up to 3.5 million residents from their current electoral homes and split the San Fernando Valley into three districts instead of the present two. A third plan, A3, would keep current boundaries largely intact but still would reassign more than 277,000 people to new districts.

After the public has had its say during what is expected to be a spirited and long-running session Tuesday, it will be the supervisors’ turn to act. Their vote will represent a pivotal moment in the once-every-decade redistricting process in which supervisorial districts are rebalanced to incorporate population changes measured by the U.S. Census.

But it’s clear that this season of redistricting, aimed at evenly incorporating the 299,274 newcomers who arrived in Los Angeles County between 2000 and 2010, has been anything but a simple numbers exercise.

Board members must weigh an array of competing and compelling concerns—balancing issues of geography, community, ethnicity and race—and come together behind one of three proposed redistricting maps before October 1 in order to comply with the deadline established by the state Elections Code.

It’s a mark of the complexity of the debate that each of the three plans under consideration has a different supervisor behind it, with Gloria Molina backing T1, Mark Ridley-Thomas S2 and Don Knabe A3, while Zev Yaroslavsky has spoken out against T1 and S2 as a “bald-faced gerrymander” that needlessly breaks up communities. (Read his blog here.)

Because the County Charter requires the five-member board to pass a redistricting plan with at least four votes—not just a simple majority—the matter has the potential to veer off on an unprecedented course.

If four supervisors can’t agree on a plan by the deadline, then the decision would go before a special redistricting commission made up of District Attorney Steve Cooley, Assessor John Noguez and Sheriff Lee Baca. Although there have been hard-fought redistricting battles in the past, the “committee of three” apparently has never been called in to make the final call, said Martin Zimmerman, county assistant chief executive officer.

The state Elections Code specifies the composition of the panel and that the District Attorney serve as its chairman. In addition to the D.A., it mandates the participation of the assessor and a third elected official. Because Los Angeles County’s top elections official and school superintendent are appointed, the third slot here would fall to the sheriff, under the code.

Much of the redistricting debate has hinged on exactly what is required under the federal Voting Rights Act, and whether there is “racially polarized voting” in the county. Courts have ruled that “50% districts”—those in which one minority group makes up more than 50% of the voting age citizenry—are required only when voting is so racially polarized that non-minorities vote against minority-preferred candidates so consistently that those candidates are denied an opportunity to win. That’s not the case here, opponents of the T1 and S2 maps say, because Los Angeles voters of all races have shown time and again that they will elect Latino candidates, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Sheriff Baca and Assessor Noguez.

Despite that, advocates for the T1 and S2 proposals contend that racially polarized voting does exist here and that the county must respond to it by creating a second district with at least 50% Latino citizens of voting age. Latinos now make up 48% of the county’s overall population and about one-third of its citizens of voting age.

Adding to the complexity of the debate are concerns voiced by some Asian-Pacific Islander leaders who say the T1 and S2 proposals could seriously undercut their communities’ voting clout.

Then there are those who point out that, by law, race and ethnicity cannot be the only considerations in redistricting decisions.

Many of them, from neighborhoods across the county, turned out for a public hearing earlier this month to urge the Board of Supervisors to keep together existing “communities of interest” under the A3 plan in order to handle pressing regional issues such as transportation and the environment.

The outpouring at that hearing came as part of a redistricting process in which the public, for the first time, was invited to design and submit its own maps using a new county website. In all, 19 plans were submitted by individuals and organizations—16 of them using the software on the county site. The site, which also features thousands of letters from the public and a wealth of links to data and documents, has drawn nearly 48,000 visits since it was launched in March.

And the public’s participation is not over yet. The Board of Supervisors’ meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 27, in Room 381 of the Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple St. Those who can’t make it in person can still make their views known by emailing [email protected] or sending a letter to the Executive Office, Board of Supervisors, Room 383, Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, 500 W. Temple Street, Los Angeles CA 90012.

Viewers also will be able to tune in to the meeting via live webcast.

Posted 9/21/11