County Urges End to Remap Decision : Courts: A federal appellate panel hears contention that there is no legal precedent to a ruling that supervisors were biased against Latinos.

SAN FRANCISCO —  Attorneys for Los Angeles County urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to overturn a lower-court ruling that found the Board of Supervisors discriminated against Latinos, contending that the decision was without legal precedent.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave no indication of how or when it would rule in the historic voting-rights case.

The decision could change political representation for many of the county’s 8.5 million residents and tip the balance of power on the board from conservatives to liberals.

During a crowded two-hour hearing, lawyers for both sides repeatedly were cut off in mid-sentence by the judges asking pointed legal questions. The judges had already been provided with a foot-high stack of legal briefs.

Judge Alex Kozinski questioned whether the supervisors’ desire to preserve their seats constituted intentional discrimination.

Attorney Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union responded: “What the supervisors decided was that in order to get reelected they had to fragment the Hispanic voting strength” in drawing district boundaries in 1981.

Kozinski also asked about the “revolutionary proposition” put forth by the plaintiffs that a government body should be required to redistrict as soon as a minority group becomes a majority of a district’s voters. The judge contended that such a practice could disrupt the “stability” of government.

Rosenbaum responded: “The purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to stop discrimination as soon as possible.”

Irving Gornstein, a Justice Department lawyer, added that the dramatic demographic changes in Los Angeles County since the supervisors’ 1981 redistricting made the case unusual.

In arguing the county’s case, lawyer John McDermott told the court: “The District Court relaxed one legal standard after another to save the plaintiffs from defeat.”

The heart of the county’s argument is that the supervisors could not in 1981, or today, fashion a district in which a majority of the voters are Latino, because many Latinos are not citizens or are not old enough to vote. Plaintiffs’ attorneys contended that Latinos in 1981 could have influenced supervisorial elections had they not been fragmented among three districts.

McDermott said the lower-court ruling violates “the most established and indisputable rule of law” in requiring a redistricting, even though in 1981 Latinos could not constitute a majority of a district’s voters.

He also contended that preliminary 1990 U.S. Census figures differ greatly from population estimates used by the lower court for drawing new district boundaries.

McDermott asked the appeals court to hold off putting any redistricting plan in effect until final census figures are released in March.