SUPERVISORS REFUSE TO PUT CROSS ISSUE ON COUNTY BALLOT.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday against placing a measure on the November ballot giving voters a chance to decide whether to keep a tiny Christian cross on the official county seal.

The board's three Democrats said county government's use of the cross is unconstitutional and that a public vote to keep it on the seal would ultimately result in an unsuccessful court battle with the American Civil Liberties Union. Instead, county government faces a lawsuit from a conservative legal group that says the supervisors' votes to remove the cross send a government-sponsored message of hostility toward Christianity in violation of the Constitution.

``I think it's clear there is an unholy alliance between the ACLU and three members of the board to eliminate the cross under the pretext that they are doing this for constitutional reasons,'' said Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Thomas More Law Center.

``It's clear that this cross would pass constitutional muster, and we intend to do everything we can legally do to ensure the cross stays on the seal. The citizens of Los Angeles County are threatening to go to the ballot box to remove the supervisors who voted for this. There is a tremendous groundswell.''

The vote was 3-1 against the motion by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who had been buoyed by a massive public outcry - the largest in recent county history - to preserve the cross after the board last week agreed a second time to remove it in the face of a lawsuit threat from the ACLU of Southern California.

Board Chairman Don Knabe left the meeting before the vote to fly to Washington, D.C., to discuss homeland security issues. Knabe asked for a week's delay on the vote but his request was denied.

``The Daily News conducted a poll and found 94 percent of the people are opposed to changing the seal,'' Antonovich said. ``NBC News conducted a poll and found 96 percent of the people were opposed to changing the seal.''

Opponents of changing the seal say they intend to collect the 170,606 signatures required to put the issue on the March 2006 ballot. Analysts say the signatures would have to be submitted to the Registrar-Recorder's Office in the next few days to meet various deadlines to place the measure on the November ballot.

Those angered by the 3-1 vote said they will gather signatures to ask voters to recall the three county supervisors who are Democrats: Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Yaroslavsky and Molina are up for re-election in March 2006. Burke is up for re-election in March 2008.

``It's not an issue of whether we can get the 200,000 signatures,'' said Dennis Prager, host of a nationally syndicated radio talk show, based in Los Angeles, who has led a campaign to keep the cross on the seal.

``There will be a huge infusion of money nationally because I and other radio talk-show hosts intend to make Los Angeles the center of this battle.

``Los Angeles County is larger (in population) than 42 ... states. As Los Angeles goes in the rewriting of American history and de-Christianization of the nation, so goes the rest of the country. If I got 2,000 people to come out on a workday, can you imagine how many signatures we could gather? The supervisors don't know the whirlwind they have sown.''

Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said some religious groups have expressed interest in helping organize and finance a signature-gathering campaign.

``A unified movement should be forthcoming,'' Bell said. ``Supervisor Antonovich is obviously disappointed and frankly disheartened by the way the board has submitted to the power of one extremist group. The fact they wouldn't allow this to go before a vote of the people is really a violation of the public trust.''

ACLU spokesman Tenoch Flores said even if the measure gets the signatures needed to put it on the ballot, ``the final count could be 500,000-to-1, and it would still be unconstitutional.''

But Thompson said opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday that preserved the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance provide strong evidence that the nation's highest court would uphold the constitutionality of the cross on the seal.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - considered the swing vote on the court and author of the most recent opinion lower courts have been using in deciding cases involving Ten Commandment plaques and nativity scenes in the public square - wrote that governments are allowed to ``commemorate the role of religion in history.''

``In my view, some references to religion in public life and government are the inevitable consequence of our nation's origins,'' O'Connor wrote.

In a footnote, O'Connor noted that several state mottoes are religious in nature. They include Arizona's ``God Enriches,'' Colorado's ``Nothing without Providence,'' Florida's ``In God We Trust'' and Ohio's ``With God, All Things Are Possible.''

``It tells me that if this came up before the U.S. Supreme Court and Los Angeles County voters had decided to defend their seal with the cross on it, they would win,'' said Thompson, whose law center was one of many that filed briefs in support of keeping ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance.

But Yaroslavsky - who chided the audience Tuesday: ``Enough of this conspiracy, cabal talk going on in this room and community'' - pointed out that O'Connor also noted that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.

``The pledge does not refer to one nation under Jesus, but a simple reference to a generic God,'' Yaroslavsky said.

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com