Art by Eric Fischer/Flickr (Creative Commons)
A color-coded ethnicity map of the Los Angeles area, based on census data
UPDATE: Los Angeles County Supervisors have voted down the plans 4 to 1 that would create a second Latino-majority district, so it’s likely the matter will now go to court.
Will Latinos in Los Angeles County wake up tomorrow with greater political representation via a new Latino-majority supervisorial district? It seems unlikely as the county Board of Supervisors votes tonight, and a court battle may be in order. But there have been substantial fireworks in getting to this point, and there will be more.
At issue is whether the county, which is nearly 50 percent Latino, should have a second Latino-majority district in addition to the one represented by county Supervisor Gloria Molina. She is the only Latino member of the five-member County Board of Supervisors. She and Latino advocacy groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) have long held that the county’s Latino residents are grossly underrepresented.
The board is voting tonight on whether to adopt one of three plans, two of which would create a new Latino-majority district, and one which would more or less maintain the status quo; Molina and MALDEF have maintained that if left as is, the boundaries fly in the face of the federal Voting Rights Act, intended to protect the voting rights of minorities. A four-member “supermajority” vote will be needed, otherwise the issue goes to court.
Meanwhile, close to a thousand people have shown up today for the board meeting at the Los Angeles Hall of Administration – not something that typically happens at county board meetings.
In recent days there have been several good explanations of the redrawn boundaries, the vote and what it represents for Latinos, including these:
The LA Weekly had a three-part “redistricting without maps” series that explains the controversy with a dose of cheeky humor, replete with cartoons and some handy pie charts illustrating quite clearly how the ethnic-racial makeup of the Board of Supervisors differs radically from that of the county’s population. There was another post explaining the politics involve via Venn Diagrams, and final installment asking, “Do People Vote Based on Race?” From the first piece:
What seems clear enough is that Latinos will get a second seat at some point — if not now then certainly in 10 years. Want proof? Check out what happens when you compare the Board’s current racial composition to the county’s total population — including children and non-citizens. Figure that in 10 years most of those children will be of voting age, and you can see that there won’t be three white seats on the Board forever.
