The Back Room Drama of Redistricting

Next month, the Legislature begins the messy process of drawing new boundaries for congressional and legislative districts.

I’ve always found redistricting, which occurs after every Census, to be one of politics’ most fascinating back room dramas, although it’s a tough sell to readers.

Friends destroy each other for the sake of a favorable district. Old scores are settled. The Republicans you see cursing Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in public make deals with him in private to assure themselves of districts with boundaries favorable enough to guarantee election.

This, however, is insider stuff. Even legislators admit that they’re seen by many constituents as remote figures who don’t particularly affect peoples’ lives. So editors and reporters figure a redistricting story can be counted on to send readers fleeing to the comics.

But there are a few localities where reapportionment is alive and relevant, touching deep community feelings.

Such a community is Monterey Park. There, Mayor Judy Chu is leading a fight for an Assembly district where an Asian-American can be elected. It would be centered in Monterey Park, where 39% of the voters are Asian.

No telling how much back room bloodletting this proposal might cause. Two other Democratic legislators have districts in the area, Xavier Bacerra of Monterey Park and Sally Tanner of El Monte. Latinos won’t give up the Bacerra seat. And Tanner’s been loyal to Speaker Brown, who’s a power in redistricting. Brown taking away her district would be a classic example of reapportionment back-stabbing.

“I don’t expect that we will reach an easy resolution,” Chu said, “but we do want to work with people as much as possible.”

The fight is more difficult because Asians have lagged behind Latinos in political organizing. That’s not surprising. Discriminatory laws prevented Asian immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens until 1952.

As a matter of fact, there were relatively few Asian immigrants until President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the liberal 1965 immigration law. Before that, immigration from Asian nations had been restricted by a series of laws dating back to the late 1800s.

The history helps explain Asian political weakness. European immigrants have been producing political leaders since the 19th Century, and blacks and Latinos began effective political organization after World War II. Asians didn’t begin this process until the 1970s.

Asian voter participation remains low. The last complete study--by UCLA political scientists in 1986--showed 43% of the eligible Japanese-Americans in the county were registered to vote. This compares to a 60% registration rate county-wide.

I asked Mayor Chu why she and the others were undertaking their fight.

“What does it matter as long as the legislator is a good person?” I said. “What are the issues where the Asian community hasn’t been represented because of the lack of Asian representatives in Sacramento?”

Asians need someone in Sacramento, she said, to speak against discrimination. For example, Asians suspect their brightest high school graduates are being discriminated against in the competition for admission to UC Berkeley and UCLA; they believe officials fear Asians already are “overrepresented” at the institutions.

“This would have been more of a public issue earlier,” she said, if there had been an Asian legislator.

UC officials deny there is any discrimination. But the perception remains in the Asian community, said Chu, sharpened by memories of previous government discrimination, including the old exclusion laws and the detention, just a half-century ago, of Japanese-Americans in World War II internment camps.

Personal experiences add to Chu’s determination.

Chu is a thoughtful college professor who studied at UC Santa Barbara and UCLA, and has a doctorate in psychology. She was elected to the Garvey elementary school district board of education, and then to the Monterey Park City Council. She’s one of the Southland’s most prominent and promising Asian politicians.

Yet the success story is colored by discrimination. “I remember things like when I was young being called a Jap or a Chink all the time and being pushed in the street,” she told me. “It’s not something you like to talk about or even acknowledge.”

But it’s enough to make her conscious of the constant danger of discrimination. And enough to propel her into the bloody back rooms of the redistricting fight.