Parties Rush to Overhaul Political Map

Now that the numbers are out, the jockeying begins.

The release of the 2000 census data officially inaugurates redistricting season--a mad scramble by political parties and pressure groups to carve up California to suit their needs.

The state’s population grew more slowly than it has in decades, meaning that there will be only one additional congressional seat in California--the smallest gain in 80 years--to accommodate an increasingly diverse array of interests.

Democrats, who are firmly in control of the statehouse and therefore of the redrawing of California’s political map, will have to decide how aggressively they want to act to increase their power in Sacramento and Washington. In the past, the party in power has resorted to tactics such as collapsing two districts held by the opposing party into one, forcing popular incumbents to run against each other.

In Los Angeles, the school board, county Board of Supervisors and City Council could all be rejiggered to represent shifts in population favoring increasingly Latino and Asian neighborhoods. Similarly, Orange County has seen largely white communities transformed by large influxes of Asians and Latinos, potentially setting the stage for political changes to come in that long-standing bastion of the Republican Party.

Each of those possibilities is freighted with potentially weighty ethnic and political implications, however, as one group’s gain often comes at another’s expense.

The Assembly and state Senate must complete redistricting by September. For the first time, the census data are available online to anyone with a computer, and the Legislature is drawing up plans for the required public hearings. But much of the work will be done behind closed doors, as experts in the arcane art of reapportionment scramble the state’s political map.

“What we have is a situation where we have to figure out 53 sets of lines for the House, 40 for the Senate and 80 for the Assembly,” said veteran Democratic political operative Kam Kuwata, who has been hired as a redistricting consultant for the lower house. “There is a degree to which you have to tear it all apart before you can rebuild it.”

The two biggest factors, analysts agree, will be term limits and California’s new designation as a state without a racial majority.

During the last redistricting, in 1991, term limits had just been approved by voters and the impact was still several years off. But now many of the legislators redrawing district lines will be forced from office and may be looking ahead to their next elected position--which could influence how they redraw political boundaries.

Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino), one of the few Sacramento legislators who was around for the prior redistricting fight, predicts that term limits will place this one in the record books.

“I always thought it was vicious before, but this is going to make the past wars look like the WWF,” he said. “For the first time, senators will be looking at the Assembly plans, Assembly members will be looking even more at the Senate plans, and both will be looking at the congressional plans. The people in Washington will be looking at Sacramento with fear.”

The state’s complex racial breakdown makes this redistricting round potentially even more dizzying.

“The significant changes in California’s population increase competition among minorities for political power, and how the lines are drawn are going to have an impact on that,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP political consultant and publisher of the Target Book, a district-by-district guide to state races. “There will be more ethnic tensions this reapportionment than probably we’ve ever seen before.”

Sizing up the new census numbers, some experts come to the opposite conclusion. Some hope that divvying up the state between an increasing number of racial groups could be more harmonious than expected.

“People are going to have to play a new role here, because no one group is going to be able to dictate what happens,” said Geraldine Washington, president of the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “We don’t have any majorities here.”

The census found that Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group in California. Nancy Yu, a research associate with the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Center in Los Angeles, said the main focus of her group will be “with the increasing ethnic diversity in California, creating districts in all communities.”

The most significant political force in the redistricting game may be the growing number of Latino politicians who are well-positioned to expand their ranks, possibly by capturing districts that long have been represented by whites or blacks.

Latinos hold six of California’s 52 House seats, 20 of 80 Assembly seats, and seven of 40 state Senate seats. But according to the newest census data, they represent 29% to 32% of the state’s population.

“Therefore, no, we don’t have direct representation,” said Amadis Velez, California redistricting coordinator for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Velez would not go as far as to say he expects the new congressional seat to be drawn for Latinos, but did add: “We don’t think right now the way the landscape lies offers full and fair representation for Latinos.”

Many of the areas in which the Latino population has burgeoned have been traditionally represented by black or white leaders. In the black political community, which struggled for decades to elect African Americans to state and federal office, there has been audible concern about seeing political power diluted by demographic shifts, such as could happen in the 37th Congressional District in southern Los Angeles County.

There, Democratic congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald, who is black, represents increasingly Latino neighborhoods in Compton, Wilmington and north Long Beach. Her district, which was 34% black in 1990, has been inundated with new Latino residents. Similar trends are at work in some of Los Angeles’ traditionally African American City Council seats.

Latino groups say they do not want to increase their political clout at the expense of other minorities. “I think what you’re going to see with Latinos and African Americans is an attempt to work together to make a win-win for both communities,” said Alan Clayton, a redistricting expert with the County Chicano Employees Assn.

Democrats do not hold all the cards, even though they control both houses in Sacramento. Any reapportionment plan needs a two-thirds vote to ensure that it cannot be challenged in a referendum. It will require GOP votes to reach that mark, as it will to garner the two-thirds majority to pass a budget or legislation dealing with the energy crisis.

That could force Democrats to be a bit more accommodating than would usually be the case.

“That’s the only power Republicans have, and I expect some hardball politics will be played on that,” Hoffenblum said. “In the midst of this utility crisis the last thing [Gov. Gray] Davis wants is a scorched-earth fight on his budget. So at some point, the Republicans say, ‘Hey, listen, Mr. Governor, we’ll get you a budget on time, but we need a, b, c and d. And one of those is don’t screw us on reapportionment.’ ”

*

Times political writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this story.