Commission finalizes L.A. County supervisors map, creating a second majority-Latino district

A citizens redistricting commission Wednesday approved a map for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that will create a second majority-Latino district while maintaining a concentration of Black voters in South L.A. and grouping more Asian American voters together.

The new majority-Latino district was formed by removing wealthy beach cities, including Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, from the 4th District and replacing them with heavily Latino communities.

For the first time, redistricting in L.A. County was in the hands of a 14-member citizens commission, created by the state Legislature in 2016 with the aim of giving Latino and Asian residents a better shot at representation.

Previously, the supervisors, sometimes referred to as the "five little kings" because of their unglamorous but powerful jobs in a county of more than 10 million, drew the lines for their own districts after the once-in-a-decade national census.

The map creates a new political reality for the supervisors with the loss of loyal constituents, and new constituents to court. It will go into effect Thursday.

Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn will see the biggest change under the new map.

The wealthy beach cities she represented will go to Supervisor Holly Mitchell's 2nd District, joining coastal areas from Marina del Rey to Redondo Beach with parts of Mid-Wilshire and South L.A.

Hahn will now represent the second majority-Latino district, with the addition of heavily Latino communities including South Gate, Huntington Park and Lynwood that were previously in the 1st or 2nd districts.

"My job is to represent the residents of the Fourth District and not only ensure their voices and interests are heard, but also get them the resources they need and deserve from the County, and that is what I plan on doing," Hahn said in a statement Tuesday.

Latino representation on the board has long been an issue in a county that is 49% Latino, 26% white, 15% Asian and 9% Black.

The first Latino supervisor, Gloria Molina, was elected in 1991 after a lawsuit alleging that the supervisors had gerrymandered district lines to keep the growing Latino population from power.

Hilda L. Solis, who is Latina, succeeded Molina as supervisor for the 1st District, which will remain majority-Latino despite losing some Latino voters.

Mitchell is Black, and the other three supervisors are white. Mitchell's 2nd District was previously represented by Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is Black.

Under the new map, the 2nd District will maintain roughly the same percentage of Black voters — about 29% — as before, with much of South L.A. and cities such as Compton and Inglewood remaining within its boundaries.

Still, advocates have raised concerns that adding predominantly white communities, including Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach, to the 2nd District will make it harder for Black politicians to win the seat.

Since the last redistricting in 2010, the percentage of Latino voters in the 2nd District has grown from 32% to 41%, with Black voters declining from 38% to 30%.

These are "the toughest choices we are making right now, in terms of what to do with [districts] 2 and 4," commission co-chair Daniel M. Mayeda said at a meeting Sunday.

Mitchell said in a statement Tuesday that she appreciates the commission's hard work and wouldn't comment on the map until it is finalized.

"They took a great deal of community input, and that was important and necessary to ensure that the process worked," said Mitchell, who was elected in 2020 after Ridley-Thomas termed out.

The new map will decrease the percentage of Latino voters in Solis' 1st District to 52% from 62%.

Solis will gain Asian American voters, with Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights and Diamond Bar moving from the 4th District to join the majority Asian cities of Monterey Park and Rosemead, which she already represents.

That will bring the Asian voter percentage in Solis' district to almost 27% — the highest in any district in at least two decades.

L.A. County has never had an Asian American supervisor, in part because Asian voters are concentrated in areas such as the San Gabriel Valley, central L.A. and South Bay that are widely separated geographically.

In a statement, Solis said goodbye to the southeast L.A. communities that will be leaving her district.

"I've had the honor of connecting with a constituency that has experienced decades of underinvestment in an effort to drive regional, systemic changes and close the equity gaps that have hurt SELA unjustly for so long," she said.

She also said she would immediately get to know the needs of her new constituents.

"I look forward to serving the new iteration of the First District, which will include communities in the San Gabriel Valley with a growing AAPI population — many whom I have had the honor of representing in the past as a State legislator and Member of Congress — as well as the Eastside and Northeast LA."

Under the new map, Supervisor Sheila Kuehl's 3rd District would lose some world-renowned cultural venues — the Hollywood Bowl, the L.A. County Museum of Art, the Ford, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures — to the 2nd or 5th districts.

Kuehl is not running for reelection, but she and her predecessor Zev Yaroslavsky allocated millions to improving the venues.

Commissioner David A. Holtzman, a public health professional and election reform advocate, said it makes sense to link studio-heavy Burbank, already in the 5th District, with other entertainment and media centers. He previously advocated to add Hollywood to the district but was "rebuffed," he said at the meeting Sunday.

In a written comment to the commission, Kuehl denounced the removal of the cultural venues from her district, when she and her staff have been "fierce advocates of the arts."

“Redistricting is always a challenging and disruptive process, but this go-round has been truly disappointing with the final map thoroughly gutting the heart of what has been the Third District at the eleventh hour while providing no time for comment or review," Kuehl said.

Some communities in the 5th District that lean more conservative, including Chatsworth and Porter Ranch, will join the 3rd District, which includes the liberal enclaves of Santa Monica and West Hollywood.

"I’m disappointed that the preliminary redistricting map removed the northwest San Fernando Valley communities from my district, despite strong public support," said 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger, the only Republican on the all-female board. "But I welcome the opportunity to represent and get to know the communities newly added to the Fifth District."

The redistricting commissioners, who were chosen to reflect the county's demographics, are unpaid volunteers and forbidden to communicate with supervisors or their close associates.

The federal Voting Rights Act requires that district lines be drawn so that racial and ethnic groups have a fair chance to elect a candidate of their choice.

In the last year, the commissioners held more than a dozen public hearings, reviewing 3,800 written public comments and almost 600 delivered orally.

They narrowed the proposed maps down to three — all of which created a second majority-Latino district — before selecting a map Sunday that was approved by the final vote Wednesday.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.