Redistricting lines cause issues
Some supervisors want majority Latino and African American districts
As the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors wrestled with three proposals to redraw district lines, Supervisors Gloria Molina and Mark Ridley-Thomas contended that the current lines were disproportionate, disenfranchising minority groups like Latinos and African Americans.
Molina and Ridley-Thomas said two majority Latino district are needed because Hispanics now comprise 48 percent of the county’s population— about one-third of voting-age residents. They also agreed that one district with an African American plurality is needed.
But third district representative, Zev Yaroslavsky said shifting more than 3 million people from one district to another is not needed and the attempt to create an additional Latino majority district is a “bald-faced gerrymander.”
http://ourweekly.com/los-angeles/supervisors-consider-three-redistricting-plans
Now that the Los Angeles City Redistricting Commission has submitted its final renditions of proposed new L.A. City Council district maps to that body’s Rules, Elections, and Intergovernment Relations Committee, a series of hearings will begin tomorrow to allow the public to once more voice their opinions and thoughts of the maps.
This first hearing will be held at 8:30 a.m. at Los Angeles City Hall in the Council chambers, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing Sept. 6 at 1:30 p.m. at the Hall of Administration in downtown L.A. to discuss the three recommendations the panel is reviewing for redrawing the county’s most powerful political districts.
The board has until the final day in September to adopt new boundary lines, and if that does not happen then three countywide elected officials—the sheriff, the assessor and the district attorney—will make up a committee that will have to approve the lines. This has never previously happened.
According to a new visualization pre-map published last weekend by the California Redistricting Commission, (CRC), South Los Angeles and Malibu have enough in common that they should be lumped together into one voting district.
That bombshell was released last weekend on the web site www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov, and has the African American community reeling and fuming.
The proposed draft maps for the new Los Angeles City Council districts have been released, and to say that some people are not happy, is an understatement of epic proportions.
On Saturday, beginning at 11 a.m., citizens in the South Region will have the opportunity to offer input during a public hearing at West Angeles Church of God in Christ, 3045 S. Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles City Redistricting Commission is expected to release its first draft map of the proposed new Los Angeles City Council district lines on Tuesday, and will follow up with a series of public hearings to solicit comments beginning next Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.
Redrawing Council lines is a process that is required every 10 years, and is designed to make sure that each district is fairly represented in terms of population and resources.
