On Tuesday, when the County Board of Supervisors votes to redraw county lines, we will show California and the nation whether we have learned from our past mistakes or are doomed to repeat them. At issue is whether the Supervisors will make voting-age Latinos the majority in two of the County’s five districts, not just one. We firmly believe the law calls for two such districts. This is not a radical proposition. Nor is it racial gerrymandering, as some have alleged. For those of us with long experience in the civil rights movement, it is simply the right thing to do.
Up for consideration are three proposed maps. The Board must reach a two-thirds consensus — four votes — to validate one.
The first option on the table is problematic: It merely tinkers around the margins of the existing boundary architecture, leaving most of the county more or less as drawn in 1990. Two other options, one sponsored by myself and another by Supervisor Gloria Molina, would each create a second Latino-majority district: The map I sponsored, SD2, crafted by a coalition of African American community organizations and churches, would make the Fourth District such a district, and the one sponsored by Supervisor Molina, T1, would create such a district in the Third, that stretches from the eastern San Fernando Valley, through downtown to East L.A.
An Undesirable Option
If the Board cannot agree on a particular map, the county will enter the uncharted waters of having the issue decided by a majority of the three Countywide elected officials: Controller John Noguez, District Attorney Steve Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca.
Foes of our maps assert that they would upset the status quo. This is true; our maps would do just that. There is justification, however, for proposing such upheaval; it is required by something greater than the comforting rhythms and routines of government, to which we have all become accustomed. That something is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act is unambiguous.
It requires our democracy to adjust when clearly defined voting patterns and substantial numbers create communities that are unable to receive adequate representation due to racially polarized voting. Those requirements are not Latino requirements; they are safeguards that ensure equality for all Americans. It’s called democracy.
It is not a coincidence that one of the first calls for a second Latino majority district in Los Angeles County came from a coalition of African-American community groups and churches. Why? Because embracing this change is fundamental to ideals embedded in our founding documents, ideals championed by Martin Luther King Jr. and that are broadly embraced by Americans. The struggle for equality is not confined to one group, and it is not intended to promote or protect privilege.
Latinos make up almost half of the county's residents. The Latino population has grown 140 percent since the last redistricting map was drawn in 1990. That growth is one reason that the 1990 map is no longer relevant, but it is not the only one. Rather, federal law requires the Board to acknowledge voting patterns and socioeconomic data, of which race and ethnicity are only a part.
In fact George Brown, counsel to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, testified before the Board of Supervisors that he found strong evidence of racially polarized voting, one of the key tests in successful voting rights act litigation. On the strength of his findings, the state commission drew Latino-majority districts in L.A. County.
What are the supposed negative ramifications of a County in which 48 percent of the population, Latinos, form the voting majority in two districts?
Some have erroneously opined that ours is an effort to elect candidates of one particular ethnicity to the Board. It is not. Others have noted that majority-minority districts are unnecessary nowadays as whites are beginning to vote for minority candidates. The reverse, however, also is true: Minority voters have an even longer history of working with and voting for white candidates. So, at issue is not the color of a candidate's skin, but whether that candidate will be responsive to the issues of a community. There is no reason white candidates can't win in reconfigured districts — if their ideas, philosophy about the role of government, style of governance and ideology, not their skin color — align with those of the constituents.
Twenty years ago, the Board of Supervisors refused to heed the call for fairness and drew county lines that effectively neutralized Latino voting power. A court remedied the Board’s intentional dilution of Latino voting strength and redrew the map. In the process, the court invalidated an election, ordered a special election and awarded the plaintiffs legal fees equal to the $6 million the Board spent to defend what was indefensible.
We can go down that same road again tomorrow and repeat history. Or, we can make history by voluntarily adhere to the voting rights act, following the numbers and following the law.
County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose Second District covers Culver City, may be contacted at http://ridley-thomas.lacounty.gov
