Brown Says Uncertainty of Jewish Vote Dictated Drawing of District

SACRAMENTO —  Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said Thursday that proposed West Los Angeles Assembly districts were drawn the way they were because Jewish voters cannot be counted on to vote for black candidates.

Brown said the district now represented by Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica was carved into several pieces so that white, mostly non-Jewish voters in Hayden’s coastal district could be distributed into districts now held by black incumbents.

If voters in the heavily Jewish districts of Assemblymen Terry B. Friedman or Burt Margolin had been put into the blacks’ districts, Assemblywoman Gwen Moore would have had to change her name to “Moorenstein” to be reelected, Brown, who is black, told reporters.

Hayden, who is planning to run again in an adjacent district, called Brown’s comments “inaccurate and paranoid.”

“The Speaker is predetermining how these people will vote based on their ethnicity,” Hayden said.

Stan Treitel, a legislative liaison for Agudath of Israel, an Orthodox Jewish organization based in Hancock Park, said Brown’s comment was a “cheap shot.” He pointed out that state Sen. Diane Watson, who is black, has represented the Hancock Park area since 1978. “Diane Watson is not Watsonstein,” Treitel said. “Maybe Willie Brown should take an education on the Jewish population.”

Because of population changes since 1980, each Assembly district will include 372,000 people. But because growth in Los Angeles has been slower than other parts of the state, several Westside districts are smaller than the ideal size and must gain population.

Brown, a San Francisco Democrat, was asked why the districts of black incumbents Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood) and Moore were moved west to pick up population rather than north, into the heavily Jewish West Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Brown said: “Going in the direction of which you speak, because of the way in which people in that area vote, Gwen Moore would have to become Moorenstein in order to have an equal opportunity to win. If you’ve got to take white people, you look for white people who have shown a tendency not to vote in blocs on behalf of something they are concerned about and interested in.”

He added: “You have persons who vote for Jewish last names first and foremost, just as you have blacks who vote for blacks against anybody else regardless of advocacy, regardless of positions on issues.”

Brown said the federal Voting Rights Act, which protects the political interests of minorities, requires legislators drawing district lines to avoid if possible including white areas with a record of racially polarized voting in minority-oriented districts.

“So under the Voting Rights Act the best advice and counsel we could get, if you’re going to add white people, you add white people that might not be hostile to a black candidacy,” Brown said.