Self-Serving Supervisors

Los Angeles County Supervisors are trying to settle a voting-rights lawsuit against them out of court. But the 3-2 vote in favor of the settlement reflects their bitter division over a proposed settlement that fails to satisfy anyone involved except the three men who voted for it to protect their political hides.

The lawsuit was filed by the U.S. Justice Department, which claims that supervisors violated the Voting Rights Act when they reapportioned their districts in 1981, deliberately dividing the county’s large Latino population among three districts. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union later joined the case. Under the plan, more Latinos would be in Pete Schabarum’s district, which already includes some heavily Latino cities in the eastern county.

Not surprisingly, Schabarum voted against the plan. So did Mike Antonovich, who fears the county may be forced to pay some of the attorneys’ fees run up by MALDEF and ACLU--something he should have thought of when the supervisors first began dragging their feet on a lost cause. The trio that approved the plan, Deane Dana, Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn, did so because they want to keep their secure districts and they don’t like the often abrasive Schabarum.

The fact that Latinos have been excluded from the board is a wrong that must be corrected. But when 8 million people are governed by a tiny clique of five politicians, no one is well-represented.

So before approving the proposed settlement, U.S. Dist. Judge Robert V. Kenyon--whose powers of persuasion have gotten the complex case this far along towards resolution--should push the supervisors to consider alternatives, particularly expanding the board to seven or nine members. That would give them all a chance at political survival. More importantly, it would give all county voters a chance to elect a more representative board.