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- NATION, Page 23American NotesCALIFORNIABreakthrough For Hispanics
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- Though 33% of Los Angeles County is Latino and 13% is black,
- only non-Hispanic white males have ever been elected to its
- board of supervisors. That 115-year monopoly may end soon.
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- Federal Judge David V. Kenyon ruled last week that, in a
- 1981 redistricting plan, the five-member board had deliberately
- diluted the voting power of the county's 3 million Hispanic
- residents to protect their own incumbencies. Such
- gerrymandering, Kenyon declared, violated both the Voting
- Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. As a remedy, the plaintiffs,
- who include Hispanic voters and the U.S. Justice Department,
- will seek the creation of a predominantly Hispanic district and
- an expansion of the board to seven or possibly nine members.
- Said Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer for the plaintiffs: "Now the club
- is open to everyone."
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