Latinos Don’t Want New District Lines to Split Oxnard

A coalition of Latino officials from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties urged a state Assembly committee Saturday to avoid fragmenting Latino communities when drawing new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts.

The Latino leaders asked that Oxnard, the center of Latino population in Ventura County, no longer be split between two Assembly and congressional districts as it is now.

Coalition leaders said that severing the community dilutes Latino voting strength and makes it tougher for Latinos to get elected to public office.

“It’s an issue of fair representation,” said Andres Herrera, chairman of the Ventura County Latino Coalition for Political Representation. “By pure demographics, we are the fastest-growing segment of the population. Now we are asking for our fair share of political power.”

Herrera of Oxnard was one of the many Latino leaders who testified before the Assembly Committee on Elections at a special hearing held at the Ventura County Government Center on Saturday.

Committee Chairman Pete Chacon (D-San Diego) is holding hearings across the state to gather advice on redrawing the political boundaries. Redistricting is done every 10 years to reflect shifts in population documented by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Official census figures show that 26.5% of Ventura County residents are Latino and that 44% of those Latinos live in Oxnard.

Yet the city has jagged political boundaries that divide its residents between the districts represented by Assemblymen Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) and Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria).

Oxnard residents are also split between the congressional districts represented by Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura).

“In past reapportionments, residents of Ventura County have been treated somewhat like children in a bitter custody battle--split into several parts and farmed out to different parents,” testified Joe Parra, reading a statement from Lagomarsino.

The congressman urged the Legislature to avoid past practices that divided communities, “with people on one side of the street having different representatives than people on the other side, and both being treated as stepchildren.”

Latinos view favorable redistricting as the key to claiming their fair share of political power.

Santa Paula Councilman Alfonso Urias said many of his city’s residents, who are 59% Latino, do not vote because of the historical pattern of only one Latino at a time being able to get elected to the City Council.

“They usually say, ‘What difference will it make?’ ” Urias said. Many Latinos will not participate in elections, he said, until more Latino candidates establish a pattern of winning elections.

Chacon, one of seven Latino lawmakers in Sacramento, said that recent court decisions citing the federal Voting Rights Act should ensure that minorities are fairly treated.

“Minorities have been precluded from electing their own representatives,” Chacon said. “That will not happen this time around.”

Former Republican Assemblyman Charles Conrad, now a Thousand Oaks resident, objected to counting non-citizens in redrawing political districts. He said that including undocumented immigrants violates the “one man, one vote” standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Chacon told Conrad that the Legislature bases its new district boundaries on census figures that do not distinguish between citizens and non-citizens.

In addition, Herrera responded that Latinos, whether they vote or not, are entitled to representation since they pay taxes. Furthermore, he said many of the non-voting Latinos are children.

The area Latino coalition is working with the Southwest Voter project, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and other statewide organizations. These groups vow to challenge redistricting maps, if they determine the newly drawn districts violate Latino voting rights.

They also plan to submit their own political maps for lawmakers to consider before the official state maps are adopted this fall.

It remains unclear whether Latinos will have significant influence over redrawing the state political map.

Alan Rosin of Camarillo, former staff director of the state Senate elections committee, said Latinos were the most prominent voice at redistricting hearings in 1980. Yet, when the new maps came out, Latinos were shortchanged in many districts drawn to secure the reelection of lawmakers.

“It is one thing to testify and it is another to have political clout,” Rosin said. At some point, all of the well-intended testimony is going to “hit the immovable object--the legislative incumbents.”