District News Roundup

A federal judge has turned back an effort by Hispanic and Asian-American voters in Oakland, Calif., to require city officials to redraw local voting districts before this November's elections for school board and city council.

Population variances in the current districts, which were drawn on the basis of the 1980 census, have become more pronounced in recent years and should be corrected in light of the 1990 census before the city's next planned redistricting in 1993, according to backers of the lawsuit filed last November.

U.S. District Judge Fern Smith ruled last month, however, that while the city's reapportionment delay was "constitutionally suspect,'' it was justified by the city's efforts to base the new districts...