Old-Fashioned Politics to the County’s Rescue : Redistricting: Supervisors are said to agree on expanding board to seven, thereby keeping conservative majority and ensuring a Latino member.

Barring a last-minute glitch, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will place a measure on the June ballot that would expand the board from five to seven members, sources say. The dramatic turnaround comes after efforts to settle a federal lawsuit, aimed at giving Latinos a better chance of electing one of their own, collapsed.

Sources say that at its Jan. 2 meeting the board will vote unanimously to enlarge its membership. (A 1976 ballot measure to expand the board was soundly defeated.) Jan. 2 is the day the suit is scheduled to go to trial in Los Angeles. The Justice Department, joined by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union, contends that the supervisors have systematically diluted Latino political power in their redistricting, a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Although details of the supervisors’ proposed redistricting are still closely guarded, the board’s five incumbents would keep most of their safe districts. The proposed sixth district would include East Los Angeles, Montebello and Pico Rivera and would be at least 70% Latino. The new seventh seat would represent a slice of the San Fernando Valley, with the political advantage going to a conservative. Thus, conservatives probably would retain their majority on the board.

Until now, only liberal Supervisors Kenneth Hahn, who has championed the idea for 16 years, and Ed Edelman favored an enlarged board. Conservatives Pete Schabarum and Mike Antonovich have consistently voted to challenge the Justice Department in court rather than expandthe board. Deane Dana, the third conservative supervisor and author of an unsuccessful pre-trial compromise, also opposed adding board members.

In the end, however, old-fashioned political pragmatism seems to have kept the conservatives off the courthouse steps. Under the expansion plan, Hahn, Dana and Antonovitch would be on the 1992 ballot, along with the candidates for the two new seats. Edelman and Schabarum face the voters next June.

A Dana-orchestrated plan that was approved by the board would have forced Schabarum to run in a new, predominantly Latino district. The ACLU and MALDEF rejected the proposal on the ground that only 35% of the registered voters in the new district would have been Latino. When they counterproposed with new district lines, the supervisors rebuffed them.

At week’s end, sources said that Antonovich and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who is expected to seek a seat on an expanded board, were discussing lines for the new Latino district. Meanwhile, Scharbarum was thoroughly enjoying his reprieve from certain political death.

The odds are strong that Sen. Alan Cranston, 75 and tarnished, by the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, will face a Democratic primary challenger in 1992. Although potential rivals are reluctant to discuss their intentions publicly, sources familiar with the thinking of Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), 48, say the six-term congressman will run. Last year, Matsui, an attorney, decided against seeking the nomination to challenge Sen. Pete Wilson. He also briefly flirted with idea of being the state attorney general.

Matsui’s intentions will become clearer, the sources said, early in the new year, when he begins raising funds for his reelection. The more statewide visibility Matsui seeks, they said, the more reason Cranston has to be concerned. Traditionally scoring at or near the top of House colleagues in terms of winning percentages, Matsui already has $800,000 in the bank. Federal rules allow House members to transfer funds to a Senate race.