REDISTRICT PLAN GETS LAWMAKER APPROVAL - * FIRST BIPARTISAN REMAP IN YEARS DRAWS CRITICISM THAT IT WILL HURT LATINO VOTING

Daniel Borenstein
West County Times
September 14, 2001

Legislators on Thursday approved the first bipartisan redistricting plans in recent state history, creating new political boundaries that strengthen Democratic control of the state Senate, Assembly and congressional delegation for a decade.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, saying the plans hurt Latino voting strength in some parts of the state, promised to sue if Gov. Gray Davis approves the plans.

Steve Maviglio, the governor's spokesman, said Davis was pleased by the bipartisan approval. He said the governor wants to review concerns of minority groups and women about the plan.

"He's going to take a fine look at it," Maviglio said. "We just got in at the end of the process."

If the plans hold, the new lines will turn one of the state's most competitive congressional seats, held by Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, solidly Democratic.

The Central Valley district of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, will be stretched into Alameda and Contra Costa counties, giving the Bay Area its only GOP member of Congress.

Most East Bay incumbents will face easy re-election campaigns. But hotly contested primary battles are likely in two Assembly districts, where term limits bar incumbents Dion Aroner, D-Berkeley, and Lynne Leach, R-Walnut Creek, from seeking re-election.

In every decade since the mid-1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court granted judicial authority to intervene in redistricting, the two major parties have split, and the political maps have wound up in court.

"This time you get a set of lines that both parties signed off on," said Bruce Cain, a UC Berkeley political scientist and an expert on redistricting. "This is something we've never seen before."

The redistricting plans were split into two bills. One, containing the plans for the state Senate and the California congressional delegation, was passed by the Senate on Wednesday night and the Assembly on Thursday. The other, with plans for the Assembly and Board of Equalization, was passed by both houses Thursday.

The bipartisan support was so strong that both bills garnered two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature. That's key because it blocks a possible statewide referendum.

Much of the dissent about the Democrat-drawn maps came from that party. Concerns included splits of communities, political self-interest of Assembly members left without friendly Senate districts to which to aspire, and opposition to a gerrymander that protects most incumbents.

Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, said the redrawing of Senate lines hurts female representation in the Legislature by lumping many Assembly women interested in running for the Legislature's upper house into the same Senate districts.

The strongest opposition came in the Assembly, where backers narrowly rounded up the two-thirds support needed for the Senate and congressional plan. A majority of Latino Assembly members backed the plan.

Mapmakers had made last-minute changes to the congressional plan to increase Latino voting strength in Southern California districts, moves aimed at legally strengthening the plan.

The Mexican American Legal Defense fund, led by attorney Amadis Velez, expressed support for much of the plan.

"We feel that the plans do make an effort in many areas to give a voice to the Latino community," Velez said.

But he remained angered by the San Fernando Valley district drawn for Rep. Howard Berman, D-North Hollywood. Congressional Democrats had hired Berman's brother, a political consultant, to draw the computer-generated lines.

The new Berman district reduces Latinos from about 39 percent to 26 percent of the registered voters, said Velez. "With a click of a mouse and a movement of the line, they managed to turn the registration efforts back 10 years."

It was political necessity of both parties that forced the bipartisan deal. Democrats were in control because of their majority in the Senate and Assembly. But they opted to shore up their marginal seats rather than trying to push for more and risking a interparty legal battle.

Republicans feared losses if they tried to battle the Democrats. They worried about cuts of their 20 California congressional seats just as the outcome of a handful of elections across the country in 2002 could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.