Ballot Measure Adding 2 to County Board Ordered : Redistricting: Critics say having fewer than 9 seats will result in another suit over minority voting rights.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday ordered the drafting of a ballot measure to expand the county board from five to seven members, despite warnings that they are inviting another costly legal battle for allegedly violating the voting rights of Latinos.

Civil rights attorneys who defeated the county in a landmark redistricting case last year warned that providing for fewer than nine supervisors would “dilute the newly acquired voting strength of the Hispanic community.”

Expansion of the board to seven members “would plunge this county again into costly and divisive litigation,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. “And quite frankly, it is litigation that the county would lose again.”

Attorneys for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund urged supervisors to consider expanding the board to nine members to provide an opportunity for a second Latino to win election.

Under a seven-district map, Rosenbaum said, the two new districts would be predominantly Anglo, weakening the political influence of voters in the redrawn 1st District where Latino Supervisor Gloria Molina was elected this year.

Conservative Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana formed an unusual alliance with liberal Supervisors Ed Edelman and Kenneth Hahn in voting for drafting of the ballot measure. The expansion proposal must be approved in its final form before it can be placed on the June, 1992, ballot.

Molina abstained, saying that she favors expansion but wanted more time to hold public hearings on how much the board should be enlarged. She said she also wants any expansion proposal to include campaign contribution limits and ethics rules for county officials.

Molina also warned her colleagues about the potential for litigation. “Keep in mind,” she said, “you’re talking to the people who took this all the way to the Supreme Court and beat Los Angeles County at a very high cost.”

After the meeting, Molina said, “It is the kind of behind-the-scenes deal making that got them in trouble,” a reference to the supervisors’ private 1981 redistricting talks.

Last year, a federal judge declared that the 1981 redistricting was illegal because it discriminated against Latinos. U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon later carved out a new 1st Supervisorial District and ordered the balloting that led to the election of Molina, the first Latino on the board this century.

Kenyon ruled that the districts are “too large for any one person to adequately represent” but he left it to the supervisors to determine whether to expand the board.

After Tuesday’s vote to place a proposed seven-member board on the ballot, Chief Assistant County Counsel Gerald Crump said he had not studied the legal questions raised by the ACLU and MALDEF and could not respond.

Hahn, who has pushed for board expansion for 18 years, said: “I don’t buy their argument at all. . . . There is always somebody who will find fault with it.”

Hahn has long argued that board expansion would improve representation for the county’s 8.8 million residents, especially minorities. “Five supervisors cannot adequately represent (them),” he said, noting that the boardroom was equipped with two extra chairs when it was built in 1961 because officials expected to someday expand the governing body in the rapidly growing county. The board has remained at five members since 1885.

Antonovich expressed dismay that the plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit would object to a seven-member board. “What I find ironic is that during the (redistricting) trial, the ACLU was in a back-room deal in (former Supervisor Pete) Schabarum’s office attempting to jam through without public comment a seven-district plan,” he said.

Rosenbaum disputed that, saying that a seven-district map was discussed during the voting rights litigation but “was never a settlement possibility.”

The ACLU lawyer said, “Expansion must go to at least nine. Otherwise, the county will be acting illegally once more.”

He predicted that if the proposal is put on the ballot and approved, millions of dollars will be spent on an election that will be invalidated by the courts. He said a vote for a seven-member board “will do the cause of expansion injury rather than promote the ultimate objective.”

Nyisha Shakur, an attorney with the NAACP, said: “There is some indication that there could be a dilution of black voting strength under a seven-member board.” She added that the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, which also was a party to the redistricting suit, would oppose the ballot measure if it appears that it will dilute the voting rights of any group.

In joining the vote to drafting the ballot measure, Edelman said he would seek a companion ballot measure to establish an elected county executive.

The supervisors on Tuesday asked a citizens committee to hold hearings on the remapping proposal and recommend a seven-district map that also would go on the ballot in June, 1992.

Any changes in supervisorial district boundaries during the next decade must be cleared with the federal court or U.S. Justice Department, Dana said.

The idea of expanding the board was first advanced in 1935, when a citizens commission said a 15-member board would provide better representation. But county voters rejected a 1962 proposal to add two board members and a 1976 proposal to add four.

The board’s former conservative majority of Antonovich, Dana and Schabarum had previously opposed expansion, contending that more supervisors would increase taxpayer costs.

But the retirement of Schabarum and the election of Molina in the redrawn 1st District created a liberal board majority, which favors expansion.

Antonovich and Dana said they remain philosophically opposed to expansion. However, recognizing that a board majority favors the concept, both supervisors said they want to begin studying possible configurations for a seven-member board.

Now is the time to address expansion, the conservatives said, because the county is required by law to readjust the boundaries of the current five districts to reflect population changes recorded by the 1990 census.