A week ago this past Tuesday, June 3rd, was the direct primary election in the State of California, where there were many local races and a few state-wide initiatives were on the ballot. If you live in California, I hope you voted… when it comes to voting, Asian Americans are NOT the “Model Minority” and are the least likely of any ethnic group to vote. But we are definitely blessed with an embarrassment of riches with so many active Asian Americans.
Mike Honda, U.S. House of Representatives,California 15th District (includes part of Santa Clara County), ran unopposed for the Democratic Party primary for re-election for his current seat.
Raymound Chui ran un-apposed, winning the U.S. House of Representatives13th District (part of Alameda County), Republican Party nomination.
In the California State Assembly District 12, San Francisco Democratic incumbent Fiona Ma won her Democratic primary, which is no surprise since she ran unopposed. And since San Francisco is a pretty reliable Democratic region, Ma will no doubt win her seat in November.
College professor and Democratic party stalwart Paul Fong won the Democratic primary for 22nd Assembly District for California State Assembly, defeating Taiwanese-American Sunnyvale Councilman Kris Wang and Korean-American Anna Song, a Santa Clara County board of education trustee ; and Santa Clara Councilman Dominic Caserta. I blogged about Fong being the ‘Godfather’ of Silicon Valley’s Asian-American political community earlier.
Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Hayward, won the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second two-year term in the 18th District (Ashland, Cherryland, Dublin, Hayward, San Leandro and San Lorenzo, and portions of Castro Valley, Oakland, Pleasanton and Sunol), defeating challenger Jason Teramoto.
Former state assemblywoman Wilma Chan was defeated in the Democratic primary, by Assemblywoman Berkeley’s Loni Hancock for State Senate representative, District 9, seat. Considering how Democratic the 9th District is (61 percent registered Democrats to 13 percent registered Republicans), Hancock will most likely be elected in November.
In Alameda County, Dennis Hayashi won his primary seat for Superior Court judge. Anna May won the two-term seat for Hayward, California City Council. I met May a few years ago through a mutual friend. I was pleasantly surprised to discover she was running while flipping the television channels a week ago and seeing her interviewed by local Chinese television station KTSF.
In Santa Clara County, George Shirakawa won his race for Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, 2nd District. In a tight race that was decided by mail-in ballots, Sunnyvale City Council member Otto Lee defeated Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves in the race for the Santa Clara County Supervisor and will be challenging current San Jose Vice Mayor David Cortese in November for the seat now held by termed-out Pete McHugh. I’ve had the chance to meet Lee a few times as well as see him in action at a city council meeting.
In San Jose, there wee four Vietnamese-American candidates who hoped to follow Madison Nguyen to the San Jose City council – Van Le, Lan Nguyen, Minh Duong and Bui Thang – all of them lost and failed to make it into the November election. 8Asians covers this in “The San Jose Little Saigon controversy and its impact on Vietnamese American politics”
Kansen Chu ran unopposed for San Jose City Council, 4th District. Former Vice Mayor of Cupertino Patrick Kwok ran unopposed for Santa Clara County Water District, District 5. To be honest, I really don’t know what Water District position does…
If I had left anybody out, please let me know!
