Doc groups issue list of overused tests, therapies

WASHINGTON (AP) — Don't be afraid to question your doctor and ask, "Do I really need that?"

That's the advice from leading medical groups who came up dozens of tests and treatments that physicians too often prescribe when they shouldn't.

No worrisome stroke signs? Then don't screen a healthy person for a clogged neck artery, the family physicians say. It could lead to risky surgery for a blockage too small to matter.

Don't routinely try heartburn medicine for infants with reflux, the pediatric hospitalists say. It hasn't been proven to work in babies, and could cause side effects.

Don't try feeding tubes in people with advanced dementia, say the hospice providers. Helping them eat is a better option.

These are examples of potentially needless care that not only can waste money and time, but sometimes can harm, says the warning being issued Thursday from medical specialty groups that represent more than 350,000 doctors.

Too many people "think that more is better, that more treatment, more testing somehow results in better health care," said Dr. Glen Stream, former president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which contributed to the list. "That really is not true."

The recommendations are part of a coalition called Choosing Wisely, formed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. Participating medical societies were asked to identify five tests or treatments that are commonly overused in their specialty. The list is aimed at doctors and includes references to published studies. Consumers Reports and other consumer groups are publicizing the information in more patient-friendly terms.

Last year, the coalition listed 45 overused tests and treatments. It included some of the best known examples, such as too much imaging for back pain and repeating colonoscopies too frequently.

This year's list adds 90 more overused kinds of care. Some are the result of doctors' habits, hard to overcome despite new evidence, Stream said. Others come about because patients demand care they think they need.

Some other examples:

—Don't use opioid painkillers for migraines except as a last resort, say the neurologists. There are better, more migraine-specific drugs available without the addictive risk of narcotics. Plus, frequent use of opioids actually can worsen migraines, a concept known as rebound headache.

—Just because a pregnant woman misses her due date, don't race to induce labor if mom and baby are doing fine, say the obstetricians. Inducing before the cervix is ready often fails, leading to an unneeded C-section. "Just being due by the calendar doesn't mean your body says you're due," Stream notes.

—Don't automatically give a child a CT scan after a minor head injury, say the pediatricians. About half of children who go to the ER with head injuries get this radiation-heavy scan, and clinical observation first could help some who don't really need a CT avoid it.

—And don't leave an implanted heart-zapping defibrillator turned on when a patient is near death, say the hospice providers. This technology clearly saves lives by guarding against an irregular heartbeat. But if someone is dying of something else, or is in the terminal stages of heart disease, it can issue repeated painful shocks, to no avail. Yet fewer than 10 percent of hospices have formal policies on when to switch off the implants.

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Bulgari shows off Liz Taylor's gems

It isn't easy sometimes to be an ordinary person in Los Angeles, so near to and yet so far from the city's glamorous events.

You hear about the grand Oscar parties, but you will never be invited. The award ceremony may be taking place minutes from where you live, but you watch it at home, on TV, in your sweat pants — and you might as well be in Dubuque.

Rodeo Drive too can make you feel like a scrap on the cutting room floor. As you stroll the wide and immaculate sidewalks of Beverly Hills' iconic shopping street, you pass by boutiques you'd feel self-conscious walking into. In the windows are baubles and trinkets you could never in three lifetimes afford.

Which is why it is rather nice to be invited to make a private appointment at the house of Bulgari, the fine Italian jeweler that opened its doors in 1884.

Elizabeth Taylor loved Bulgari jewels. Richard Burton, whose torrid affair with her began during the filming of "Cleopatra" in Rome, accompanied her often to the flagship shop on the Via Condotti. He liked to joke that the name Bulgari was all the Italian she knew.

So it is fitting that starting Oscar week, the jeweler is celebrating the Oscar-winning star with an exhibit of eight of her most treasured Bulgari pieces.

They are heavy on diamonds and emeralds — of rare size, gleam and value.

And Bulgari knows their value well.

After Taylor's death, it reacquired some of the gems at a Christie's auction. One piece, an emerald-and-diamond brooch that also can be worn as a pendant, sold for $6,578,500 — breaking records both for sales price of an emerald and for emerald price per carat ($280,000).

That brooch, whose centerpiece is an octagonal step-cut emerald weighing 23.44 carats, was Burton's engagement present to Taylor. He followed it upon their marriage (his second, her fifth) with a matching necklace whose 16 Colombian emeralds weigh in at 60.5 carats. Bulgari bought the necklace back too, for $6,130,500.

They are in the exhibit, along with Burton's engagement ring to Taylor and a delicate brooch — given to her by husband No. 4, Eddie Fisher — whose emerald and diamond flowers were set en tremblant so that they gently fluttered as Taylor moved.

The jewels are not for sale.

On Tuesday night, actress Julianne Moore wore the Burton necklace, with pendant attached, at a gala for Bulgari's top clients. At the dinner hour, guests were escorted along a lavender-colored carpet to a nearby rooftop that had been transformed into a Roman terrace.

Those honored guests, of course, got private viewings of Taylor's jewels.

But so did Amanda Perry, a healer from West Hollywood who arrived the next morning for one of the first appointments available to the public.

Someone had emailed news of the collection to the 35-year-old Taylor fan. She walked in off the street Tuesday, when the exhibit was open only to press — and Sabina Pelli, Bulgari's glamorous executive vice president, fresh from Rome, was taking sips of San Pellegrino brought to her on a silver tray between back-to-back interviews that started at 5 a.m.

The camera crews were long gone when Perry came back Wednesday. She had the exhibit, and handsome sales associate Timothy Morzenti of Milan, entirely to herself.

In a black suit, still wearing on his left hand the black glove he dons to handle fine jewels, Morzenti whisked Perry off via a private elevator to the exhibit on the second floor. The jewels stood in vitrines mounted high off the ground. Behind them were photos and a slide show of Taylor, bejeweled.

"Which piece would you like to see first?" Morzenti asked her as a security guard stood by. "I personally love the emerald ring."

Then he proceeded at leisure to explain Bulgari-signature sugar-loaf cuts and trombino ring settings, while tossing in occasional Taylor stories.

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India Ink: Irene Genovese, the Traveler from Italy

Why do millions of people, from entire Indian villages to urbane middle managers to foreign tourists, brave the crowds at the Kumbh Mela? During this year’s 55-day pilgrimage, to Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, an estimated 100 million Hindus and others are expected to take a holy dip in the Ganges River to wash away their sins. India Ink interviewed some of them.

Irene Genovese, 55, a traveler from Tuscany, Italy,  was one among them. This is what she had to say.

Why did you come to the Kumbh Mela this year? Is it your first time?

Yes, it is my first time. I love the experience so far. My partner has been teaching yoga in Italy for about 40 years now, so he wanted to come down here and meet the sadhus who practice yoga regularly.

How have you found it so far?

I am overwhelmed by the number of people there are here! We knew there would be crowds, but didn’t expect this. These are unbelievable numbers. We have also liked the interactions with the sadhus. We live in the Hare Krishna tent so get to interact a lot more with the devotees.

Describe your journey to the Kumbh. Did you travel alone? How long did it take?

We took a stopover in Delhi before coming here. Our Kumbh trip is for only four days. Now we are wondering how we would get back to Delhi. They say there are no last-minute reservations on trains.

Do you consider yourself a religious person?

Yes, I am religious. But my partner is more religious than I. And I respect that.

Do you follow Indian politics? Who do you think is going to win the 2014 election?

I don’t follow Indian politics. I don’t follow politics at all.

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What's Next for Mindy McCready's Two Young Boys?

By Steve Helling

02/19/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready's apparent suicide on Sunday has left her two young sons in custodial limbo.

The boys – Zander, 6, and Zayne, 10 months – had been in state custody since Feb. 7, when McCready called police to ask for help in making her father and stepmother leave her home. When police arrived, McCready appeared to be intoxicated, according to a Department of Human Services report.

In a subsequent petition, the singer's father, Tim McCready, asked the court to order her to undergo mental health and substance abuse evaluation and treatment, alleging that his daughter, who had recently lost her boyfriend, "hasn't had a bath in a week ... screams about everything ... [is] very verbally abusive to Zander."

After a judge granted the petition, the children were quickly removed and placed into foster care. Although McCready was released from treatment, the boys remained in state custody.

At the time, Zander's father, Billy McKnight, requested custody of his son. "My son needs me," he told PEOPLE on Feb. 8. "I'm married, working and successful. I'm on the right track and proud of it. I've been sober for years. I just want my son."

But McCready's mother and stepfather, Gayle and Michael Inge, also want custody of the children – and authorities seem to agree.

In a proposed order sent to Circuit Judge Lee Harrod, the Department of Human Services proposed that the Inges might be a better fit for the children, claiming that they have "a substantial relationship." The Inges had custody of Zander for much the past few years, during McCready’s rehab and jail stints.

With McCready's death, the judge will have to determine what is in the children's best interest. A custody hearing has been scheduled for April 5.

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Drug overdose deaths up for 11th consecutive year

CHICAGO (AP) — Drug overdose deaths rose for the 11th straight year, federal data show, and most of them were accidents involving addictive painkillers despite growing attention to risks from these medicines.

"The big picture is that this is a big problem that has gotten much worse quickly," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which gathered and analyzed the data.

In 2010, the CDC reported, there were 38,329 drug overdose deaths nationwide. Medicines, mostly prescription drugs, were involved in nearly 60 percent of overdose deaths that year, overshadowing deaths from illicit narcotics.

The report appears in Tuesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

It details which drugs were at play in most of the fatalities. As in previous recent years, opioid drugs — which include OxyContin and Vicodin — were the biggest problem, contributing to 3 out of 4 medication overdose deaths.

Frieden said many doctors and patients don't realize how addictive these drugs can be, and that they're too often prescribed for pain that can be managed with less risky drugs.

They're useful for cancer, "but if you've got terrible back pain or terrible migraines," using these addictive drugs can be dangerous, he said.

Medication-related deaths accounted for 22,134 of the drug overdose deaths in 2010.

Anti-anxiety drugs including Valium were among common causes of medication-related deaths, involved in almost 30 percent of them. Among the medication-related deaths, 17 percent were suicides.

The report's data came from death certificates, which aren't always clear on whether a death was a suicide or a tragic attempt at getting high. But it does seem like most serious painkiller overdoses were accidental, said Dr. Rich Zane, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

The study's findings are no surprise, he added. "The results are consistent with what we experience" in ERs, he said, adding that the statistics no doubt have gotten worse since 2010.

Some experts believe these deaths will level off. "Right now, there's a general belief that because these are pharmaceutical drugs, they're safer than street drugs like heroin," said Don Des Jarlais, director of the chemical dependency institute at New York City's Beth Israel Medical Center.

"But at some point, people using these drugs are going to become more aware of the dangers," he said.

Frieden said the data show a need for more prescription drug monitoring programs at the state level, and more laws shutting down "pill mills" — doctor offices and pharmacies that over-prescribe addictive medicines.

Last month, a federal panel of drug safety specialists recommended that Vicodin and dozens of other medicines be subjected to the same restrictions as other narcotic drugs like oxycodone and morphine. Meanwhile, more and more hospitals have been establishing tougher restrictions on painkiller prescriptions and refills.

One example: The University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora is considering a rule that would ban emergency doctors from prescribing more medicine for patients who say they lost their pain meds, Zane said.

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Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

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Online:

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com

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Jan Perry attack mailers seek to siphon votes from Wendy Greuel

Jan Perry occasionally lets loose a subtle swipe at her rivals in the Los Angeles mayor's race. But for the most part she has been a polite voice in the campaign's many debates, presenting herself as a truth-teller willing to forthrightly confront the city's challenges.

But away from the public forums, the councilwoman who represents South Los Angeles and part of downtown has unleashed a blistering attack on City Controller Wendy Greuel in an effort to draw fiscally conservative voters into her column. Her latest mailer goes after Greuel's ties to the city utility workers' union and features the smiling controller holding a sign that reads, "I sold you out."

At least three of Perry's mailers include disingenuous criticisms of Greuel, a tactic that appears at odds with the plainspoken and upright image she has sought to nurture. Among other things, Perry has criticized Greuel for supporting utility rate hikes and a city contract that Perry also voted to approve.

Perry defends the attacks as effective campaigning.

"You target your mail and target your message," she said. "Everybody does that. A smart person does."

The mailers are part of a larger gamble Perry is making that she can weaken Greuel and siphon off votes in the relatively conservative San Fernando Valley, the controller's home base of support. Perry, who presents herself as pro-business and willing to stand up to public employee unions, recently opened a field office in North Hollywood and has been courting area activists.

Former City Councilman Greig Smith, a Valley Republican who has endorsed Perry, said that if Perry hopes to make it into a May runoff election, "her best shot is taking out Wendy." And the mailers could help, he said. "Wendy has some liabilities that are going to come up — all her union endorsements aren't going to help her in the Valley."

Valley voters are getting "a tremendous amount of targeted mail from the Perry campaign," said Tom Hogen-Esch, a political science professor at Cal State Northridge who has studied city politics for nearly two decades. "This is a battle between two candidates who are positioning themselves for the conservative vote," he said.

Perry may win over some Greuel supporters, but probably too few to stop her chief rival, he said.

"Wendy Greuel has a long history in the Valley, and I think people know her record. Jan Perry, to a large extent, is unknown outside of her district," he said. And the negative tone of Perry's mailers could work against her, Hogen-Esch said. "I just don't think those kind of attacks are really going to resonate with a lot of voters," he said.

Perry is running third in fundraising and appears unlikely to have money for television ads unless she receives a late infusion of contributions. In a mass media market such as Los Angeles, that puts her at a disadvantage against Greuel and Councilman Eric Garcetti, who have been airing TV ads heavily for more than a week.

Perry and the other two elected officials in the race have been painted by other candidates as three peas in a City Hall pod. But Perry is viewed as having a more fiscally conservative record than Greuel or Garcetti, and has a testier relationship with organized labor. Indeed, she underscores not being the favored candidate of the powerful union that represents Department of Water and Power workers and that is the primary funder of an independent pro-Greuel effort that has raised nearly $1.3 million.

Perry hopes that political profile will attract Valley voters. But Greuel grew up in the area, serving as senior class president at Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, and later representing much of the area on the City Council. She has a long list of Valley endorsements, including from the Los Angeles Daily News and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

With less campaign cash, Perry has been dependent on less-costly mailings for her flanking maneuver against Greuel.

Some contain attacks on Greuel that were inconsistent with Perry's own record.

In one, Perry criticizes Greuel for voting three times to raise DWP rates, when Perry also voted for the hikes. Perry said Greuel's votes were fair game in light of the DWP union throwing its support behind her. In another about a controversial expedited parking-ticket review program used by public officials and their staff — known as the Gold Card desk — Perry criticizes Greuel for backing the contract with a firm that ran the program. But Perry voted for the contract as well. Perry also defended that hit, saying that she and her staff never used the service, an allusion to the fact that a Greuel staff member used the service to process a parking ticket for his mother.

In yet another mailer, she criticizes Greuel for her ties to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. At the same time, Perry was sending mailers to Latino voters with photos of her alongside Villaraigosa and suggesting that he views her as a good successor. The mayor has not endorsed anyone in the race.

A spokeswoman for Greuel, who previously called Perry a hypocrite for the mailers, said the latest pieces raise troubling questions about the councilwoman.

"Either Jan doesn't know how deceptive her campaign mail is or she knows and doesn't care," Shannon Murphy said. "Neither inspires much trust in someone who wants to be the mayor of Los Angeles."

Perry's campaign consultant, Eric Hacopian, said the mailers are "common-sense" campaigning. Perry has remained true to her fundamental beliefs about reforming city government, he said.

"What you try to do is try to tailor your message to a particular constituency," he said. "You must always be strategically consistent, but tactically flexible."

He asserted the mailers are working and that Perry's name-recognition among voters now equals that of Greuel and Garcetti.

Smith said some Valley voters assumed Perry was more liberal than she is because she's an African American who represents South Los Angeles. But when they hear directly from Perry, many are impressed, Smith said.

"More and more people are saying I know why you endorsed her," he said, citing her candid approach to the city's financial woes.

But she can't meet the entire region through kaffeeklatsches, homeowners association gatherings and meet-and-greets.

Perry's biggest obstacle remains "not enough name-recognition," Smith acknowledged. "We'll see."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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Japan Finds Swelling in Second Boeing 787 Battery

TOKYO (Reuters) - Cells in a second lithium-ion battery on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner forced to make an emergency landing in Japan last month showed slight swelling, a Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) official said on Tuesday.

The jet, flown by All Nippon Airways Co, was forced to make the landing after its main battery failed.

"I do not know the exact discussion taken by the research group on the ground, but I heard that it is a slight swelling (in the auxiliary power unit battery cells). I have so far not heard that there was internal damage," Masahiro Kudo, a senior accident investigator at the JTSB said in a briefing in Tokyo.

Kudo said that two out of eight cells in the second battery unit showed some bumps and the JTSB would continue to investigate to determine whether this was irregular or not.

The plane's auxiliary power unit (APU) powers the aircraft's systems when it is on the ground. National Transportation Safety Board investigators in the United States are probing the APU from a Japan Airlines plane that caught fire at Boston's Logan airport when the plane was parked.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority grounded all 50 Boeing Dreamliners in commercial service on January 16 after the incidents with the two Japanese owned 787 jets.

The groundings have cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, with no solution yet in sight.

Boeing rival Airbus said last week it had abandoned plans to use lithium-ion batteries in its next passenger jet, the A350, in favor of traditional nickel-cadmium batteries.

Lighter and more powerful than conventional batteries, lithium-ion power packs have been in consumer products such as phones and laptops for years but are relatively new in industrial applications, including back-up batteries for electrical systems in jets.

(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Richard Pullin)

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Mindy McCready: Under Police Scrutiny at Time of Suicide?

By Steve Helling and Mike Fleeman

02/18/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

Mindy McCready and David Wilson

Courtesy Mindy McCready

When Mindy McCready talked to police in recent weeks, her account of how her boyfriend came to be found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head concerned police, a law enforcement source tells PEOPLE.

"At first, she said she hadn't heard the gunshot because the TV was too loud. Then she said she had heard the gunshot," the source says. "So obviously there were a lot of questions, and the Sheriff was asking for clarification."

But before investigators could re-interview her, the long-troubled country singer also would die under eerily similar circumstances, her body discovered at the same Heber Springs, Ark., house just feet away from where David Wilson died.

McCready's death was blamed on what "appears to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound," the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

This differed from how the sheriff characterized Wilson's case. His cause and manner of death still have not been established by the coroner. It was McCready's publicist, and not a law enforcement official, who announced that Wilson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

After Wilson's death, McCready, 37, spoke to investigators three times, but they didn't feel as if they were through with her.

"At no point did [police] tell her she was a suspect, and she wasn't officially one," says the source. "But she knew that some of her answers didn't stand up to questioning. She was very cooperative, but she just wasn't making a lot of sense."

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Hip implants a bit more likely to fail in women

CHICAGO (AP) — Hip replacements are slightly more likely to fail in women than in men, according to one of the largest studies of its kind in U.S. patients. The risk of the implants failing is low, but women were 29 percent more likely than men to need a repeat surgery within the first three years.

The message for women considering hip replacement surgery remains unclear. It's not known which models of hip implants perform best in women, even though women make up the majority of the more than 400,000 Americans who have full or partial hip replacements each year to ease the pain and loss of mobility caused by arthritis or injuries.

"This is the first step in what has to be a much longer-term research strategy to figure out why women have worse experiences," said Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Research Center for Women & Families. "Research in this area could save billions of dollars" and prevent patients from experiencing the pain and inconvenience of surgeries to fix hip implants that go wrong.

Researchers looked at more than 35,000 surgeries at 46 hospitals in the Kaiser Permanente health system. The research, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, was funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

After an average of three years, 2.3 percent of the women and 1.9 percent of the men had undergone revision surgery to fix a problem with the original hip replacement. Problems included instability, infection, broken bones and loosening.

"There is an increased risk of failure in women compared to men," said lead author Maria Inacio, an epidemiologist at Southern California Permanente Medical Group in San Diego. "This is still a very small number of failures."

Women tend to have smaller joints and bones than men, and so they tend to need smaller artificial hips. Devices with smaller femoral heads — the ball-shaped part of the ball-and-socket joint in an artificial hip — are more likely to dislocate and require a surgical repair.

That explained some, but not all, of the difference between women and men in the study. It's not clear what else may have contributed to the gap. Co-author Dr. Monti Khatod, an orthopedic surgeon in Los Angeles, speculated that one factor may be a greater loss of bone density in women.

The failure of metal-on-metal hips was almost twice as high for women than in men. The once-popular models were promoted by manufacturers as being more durable than standard plastic or ceramic joints, but several high-profile recalls have led to a decrease in their use in recent years.

"Don't be fooled by hype about a new hip product," said Zuckerman, who wrote an accompanying commentary in the medical journal. "I would not choose the latest, greatest hip implant if I were a woman patient. ... At least if it's been for sale for a few years, there's more evidence for how well it's working."

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Online:

Journal: http://www.jamainternalmed.com

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Complaint alleges racial bias in Palmdale elections

Latinos and African Americans make up about two-thirds of the population of Palmdale. But since the city's incorporation in August 1962, not a single black resident and only one Latino has ever served on the City Council.

That's the backdrop of a complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Antelope Valley civil rights activists alleging racial bias in city elections in this High Desert locale. The complaint argues that Palmdale's system of at-large council seats dilutes the influence of minority voters.

"Latinos and African Americans are locked out of the political system in the city of Palmdale," said Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman, who is representing plaintiff Juan Jauregui, a Palmdale resident. Three local black activists and the NAACP have also said they will join the case, scheduled to go to trial in May.

The litigation is the latest in a series of racially themed conflicts in the Antelope Valley as blacks and Latinos have moved into once mostly white areas. Housing programs and police practices have been flash points as activists have challenged policies they perceive as unfairly targeting minority residents.

Plaintiffs say the city's at-large election system violates the state's 2001 Voting Rights Act, which guards against disenfranchisement of minorities. They seek a change to district-by-district voting.

Palmdale is fighting back. In court documents, city attorneys argue that because blacks and Latinos are a majority of registered voters in the city, they are "in a position, numerically" to elect the mayor and City Council members.

The lawyers also insist that district voting would not have helped minority candidates who lost. "They simply had very little support from voters, and no drawing or gerrymandering of districts would have resulted in a district which would have elected them," the attorneys said.

Moreover, in November 2001 Palmdale's residents voted against a measure to introduce district voting. City Atty. Wm. Matthew Ditzhazy said via email that "ultimately it was the community's decision to make."

In a recent deposition, James Ledford, who has been elected the city's mayor 11 times since 1992, said he did not even know the race of his fellow council members and was not aware that all but one had been white.

Asked whether it bothered him "in any way that racial minorities in Palmdale might feel that they are not being represented in the City Council," Ledford said no.

Ledford declined to be interviewed for this article, although in the past he has said he favored district voting.

Traditionally, low voter turnout among blacks and Latinos in Palmdale's municipal elections has shrunk their voting power compared with that of whites, who turn out in greater numbers, statistics show.

The majority of Palmdale Latinos voted yes for district elections in 2001, but the measure was defeated because 66% of whites opposed it, according to data compiled by a city consultant and cited by Shenkman.

Similarly, in 2009, when V. Jesse Smith, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, ran for City Council, he split the Latino vote 49% to 51% with Steve Fox, who is white. But neither won a council seat. The spots went to white candidates Tom Lackey and Laura Bettencourt, who scored heavily among whites, although neither got a single Latino vote, Shenkman said.

Shenkman acknowledged the poor voting record of minority groups, but he blamed the system of at-large voting. Blacks and Latinos didn't vote because they had "grown to understand that their vote doesn't matter," he said.

At least a dozen government entities in California, including cities, school districts and county boards, have been sued under the state's Voting Rights Act, said Shenkman. Some cases are still pending, others have ended in settlements resulting in district elections, he said.

One of those was Compton, which placed the issue on the ballot last June to settle a lawsuit. Voters approved the switch from at-large to district voting. The change may give Latinos — who make up a majority of the city's population but a minority of eligible voters — a greater chance of putting the first Latino on the City Council in April.

For supporters of district voting in Palmdale, the claim represents a new effort to shake up the political status quo in the Antelope Valley. They say it will make city representatives more accountable to voters.

But Richard Loa, an attorney who in 2001 became the only Latino ever to win a council seat in Palmdale, said that although he supported Latinos' push for representation, he opposes resolving the issue through litigation.

"The important thing is to have effective leadership," said Loa, who has said he will run again.

Race isn't everything, agreed Darren Parker, who as chairman of the California Democratic Party's African American caucus helps recruit potential minority candidates to run for local office, but he said High Desert cities need black voices in leadership.

"I don't believe that anyone who doesn't get up in the morning and look like me can really walk in my shoes," Parker said.

Among the lawyers representing the plaintiffs is attorney R. Rex Parris, mayor of neighboring Lancaster, which uses at-large elections but is weighing a change.

Lancaster's population is about 40% Latino and 20% African American, but the City Council has four white men and one Latina. The city has also faced charges of racial bias, but Lancaster has a track record of minority representation on its council, including an African American who twice served as mayor.

Lilia Galindo, who has used her Palmdale-based Café Con Leche radio talk show to encourage Latinos to get out and vote, said High Desert Latinos were eager to find their political voice. District elections would help, she said.

"We've started to realize how important it is to express our rights as citizens," Galindo said.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

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