Re “Help Me, Please, Yaroslavsky Pleads”
Redistricting is one of the most contested and least understood concepts in politics.
In Los Angeles, few political figures can define and explain the necessity and the architecture of redistricting with the clarity of Vincent Harris, senior deputy to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.
You don’t have to listen closely to detect the quarrels resounding across the land, from your front door to the other coast.
Just last month, Mr. Harris’s boss, Mr. Ridley-Thomas, practically started a war in Los Angeles County when he and fellow Supervisor Gloria Molina — that is not Ms. O’Brien or Ms. Constantini —proposed redistricting that likely would increase minority representation on the five-person, three-white guy board.
“Redistricting is important because it preserves the equal protection assured to all citizens of the United States,” Mr. Harris said.
“Redistricting preserves the one-person, one-vote standard.
“It does that by readjusting every 10 years, based on census data, the population, taking into account growth, loss or changes in the residency patterns of a given community.
“Over the last decade, as an example, District 5, (Supervisor) Mike Antonovich’s district, gained 50,000 new residents.
(District 5 spans the Antelope Valley, the High Desert, the Santa Clarita Valley, and the San Gabriel Valley in South Pasadena and Altadena.)
“Meanwhile, Don Knabe’s district (South Bay) and Gloria Molina’s (East Los Angeles) lost population.
“We had to move the boundaries,” Mr. Harris said, “so that each of the five districts is roughly equal in population.”
He said that ethnicity of spectacularly diverse Los Angeles is crucial because of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“It was enacted principally to ensure that protected ethnic and racial groups were not disadvantaged by actions taken by states and local governments.
“As a consequence of the protections afforded certain ethnic groups covered by the Voting Rights Act, the standard for redistricting must ensure they are not inappropriately disenfranchised.”
(To be continued)
