LA County to Pick From 3 Redistricting Plans

Three new proposals for how to draw new electoral boundaries for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors were released on Tuesday just before a deadline for submissions.

As the deadline has now passed, the Board will ultimately have to choose from one of the three new plans, all of which bear at least some similarities to the two major plans being previously discussed.

Whether any of the plans can get the required support of four out of the five county supervisors remains to be seen: the supervisors own handpicked Boundary Review Committee (BRC) split bitterly over the two plans with one plan receiving 6 out of 10 votes, and the other receiving 4 out of 10. 

Two Divergent Views of Redistricting

The issue over how to divide the boundaries has come down to a question of how many districts will contain a Latino voting-age majority: Latino groups say the plan that the BRC's approved plan is a violation of federal law because it pushes the county's Latino population mainly into one district.

Supporters of the committee plan have argued that the alternative plan moves too many county voters to new districts (around 3 million would be moved) and unnecessarily splits communities accustomed to being in one district together.

If the Board of Supervisors cannot agree on one of the three plans, a committee made up of representatives of the county Sheriff's Department, Assesor's Office, and District Attorney's office will be responsible for coming up with a plan.

If the county is able to agree on any of the three plans, Hollywood's District 3 boundaries could remain unchanged or portions split between Districts 1, 2 and 4.

Getting precise information on which communities will be moved and what the ethnic make-up of each district will be is difficult currently, as county officials have not yet done a full analysis of each plan.

However, below are some relevant details from the three plans the county could chose from.  The full plans can be viewed by clicking on the hyperlinks below.

• Gloria Molina's plan: Molina, a supporter of having multiple Latino-majority districts, has issued a plan which like previous ones, would have three districts where Latinos would constitute a majority among the voting-age population. Her plan would split Hollywood's District 3 designation. A western portion of the community would fall under District 4.
• Mark Ridley-Thomas' plan: The plan proposed by Ridley-Thomas is similar to Molina's in that many of the same towns would be together. Hollywood's District 3 designation would change — moving some neighborhoods into District 1 and District 2. It appears that most residents in the Hollywood Hills would remain in District 3.
• Don Knabe's plan: Knabe's plan is very similar to the one approved by the BRC in that it would maintain electoral boundaries very close to the existing ones and would only relocate about 200,000 people from their existing districts.

During the Boundary Review Committee proceedings, appointees of Antonovich, Knabe, and Zev Yaroslavsky all voted for a similar plan to Knabe's current, while those appointed by Ridley-Thomas and Molina dissented.

Next step: The Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the redistricting plans Tuesday, Sept. 6 at 1 p.m. in the Board of Supervisors Hearing Room, 500 West Temple Street, Room 381B, Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in Los Angeles.

This article was originally published on Altadena Patch.