judy chu (d-ca) first chinese american woman elected to congress

In Tuesday's special election, Judy Chu became the first Chinese American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She will represent California's 32nd, in the largely Latino and Asian American suburbs of Los Angeles. The special election was to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Chu will undoubtedly continue Solis's legacy of strong dedication to the diverse community.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus issued a press release, in part below:

Today, executive board members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus issued the following statements enthusiastically welcoming California State Board of Equalization member Judy Chu to Congress. Chu is the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress, and the twelfth Asian American and Pacific Islander to serve our nation in the 111th Congress.

Rep. Mike Honda, CAPAC Chair: “I offer my heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend, Judy Chu. Judy has been a strong advocate on behalf of America’s working families and communities, and has proven herself as a leader who can build broad-based coalitions. She brings strong expertise from her tenure on the California Board of Equalization that will be critical as we fight to preserve American jobs and strengthen our economy. Congress will gain much from what Judy has to offer. With pride, I look forward to inviting her to join our ranks as a member of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.”

Rep. Eni Faleomavaega, CAPAC Vice Chair: “It is with great pleasure that I congratulate Dr. Judy Chu on her successful election into Congress. Congresswoman Chu’s diverse background, as a professor, Mayor and State Assembly Member of Monterey Park, and as a member of the California State Board of Equalization, will bring a truly unique viewpoint to the important issues currently facing Congress. With over twenty years serving areas of the California 32nd District, Congresswoman Chu will represent them well in Congress. I look forward to working with her on finding solutions to the many issues and pressing problems afflicting not only our Asian and Pacific American community but all Americans.”

President Obama also called Representative-elect Chu yesterday to congratulate her on her victory:

The President called Representative-elect Judy Chu to congratulate her on her victory in last night's special election in California. The President told her that he is looking forward to working with her in Congress, especially when it comes to reforming our health care system and lowering health care costs for all Americans. The President also congratulated her on being the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress and told her that he admired the way she ran her campaign.

To view a picture of the President calling Congresswoman-elect Judy Chu from the Oval Office today to congratulate her on her victory in the special election to represent California's 32nd Congressional District, click HERE.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

happy bastille day

July 14th is Bastille Day, or "Fête Nationale," the French national holiday celebrating the storming of the armory/prison fortress Bastille and a symbolic beginning of popular uprising of the French Revolution.

From my rough understanding, the storming of the Bastille has the sort of place in the French national consciousness that the Boston Tea Party does for us, albeit with more intrigue and drama. Because that's how the French do.

so much better than dr. sanjay gupta

After the disaster that was the nomination of CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General (who, it was reported in the end, turned down the job in part because it didn't pay as much as being a TV personality), President Obama made his pick today: a primary care physician who has lived the social determinants of health, both professionally and personally. Dr. Regina Benjamin is the sort of doctor dedicated to her patients and who recognizes that the larger issues we face in improving our national health system extend far beyond just insurance reform and into public health and wellness. From USA Today:

President Obama turned to the Deep South for the next surgeon general, choosing a rural Alabama family physician who made headlines with fierce determination to rebuild her nonprofit medical clinic in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Regina Benjamin is known along Alabama's impoverished Gulf Coast as a country doctor who makes house calls and doesn't turn away patients who can't pay — even as she's had to find the money to rebuild a clinic repeatedly destroyed by hurricanes and once even fire.

"For all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what's best about health care in America, doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients," Obama said Monday in introducing his choice for a job known as America's doctor.

[...]

Benjamin called the job "a physician's dream," and pledged to be a voice for patients in need — and to fight the preventable diseases that claim too many lives each year, including nearly her entire family.

Her father died with diabetes and high blood pressure, her only brother of HIV, her mother of lung cancer "because as a young girl, she wanted to smoke just like her twin brother could" — an uncle now on oxygen as a result, she noted.

"I cannot change my family's past. I can be a voice in the movement to improve our nation's health care and our nation's health," Benjamin said. "I want to be sure that no one falls through the cracks as we improve our health care system."

[...]

Pushed by the need in her own shrimping community of Bayou La Batre, Ala., and its diverse patient mix — white, black and, increasingly immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos — Benjamin, 51, has emerged as a national leader in the call to improve health disparities. She became the first black woman and the first doctor under age 40 elected to the American Medical Association's board of trustees, and in 2002 became the first black woman to head a state medical society.

She's gotten good early reviews from the American Public Health Association, an important endorsement given that the Surgeon General is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, within the Department of Health and Human Services. Best of luck to her with the confirmation hearings, though I imagine she won't need luck given her history of determination and her impressive experience.

interview with john cho

Great interview with John Cho (Star Trek, Harold and Kumar) in Asia Pacific Arts ("The Game-Changer") (h/t angry asian man). My favorite excerpt, which speaks to why Cho has been so successful at transforming the industry for APIA actors:

Right, right, right. I've heard it all. It's funny. It's almost perverse how much I've thought about my Asian American audience, and my whole career, every job -- every audition -- that I've ever been offered, I think about how it will serve the community or not. If people will appreciate it or find it offensive, and it's almost the single factor by which I take jobs or not. Because as soon as I started, I realized it was so important to people. From my experiences as a boy, I realized that those images meant something to me. Mostly, it's not grandiose to where I thought I could affect positive change. I was really just trying to avoid doing damage to the Asian American psyche. I just figured, I don't need to contribute to that. But it's funny, as much as I've thought about Asian America, I've had to ignore them as well, after I make my decision, because you can interpret it any way you want it. Earlier, we talked about how I felt like I was battling a stereotype that Asians weren't funny and can't do comedy and couldn't make the jokes. We're always the butt of jokes, and we're never the funny guy. And I was in Korea a few weeks ago at a junket and one of the journalists asked me, "Why is it that Asians are always the funny people?" And I thought, "well, this is really strange." Whatever it is, it's like statistics. Sports statistics, you can see the pattern you want to see. You can tell the story you want to tell based on these numbers. So, I've heard that. Harold and Kumar, I believe, is largely a positive portrayal and there are people who don't appreciate it. What can you do?

sen. al franken (d-mn)!

Al Franken was sworn in this morning as the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He joins Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) in representing the Land of 10,000 Lakes (also the North Star State and the Gopher State).

Here's then candidate Franken from early in his campaign, on Letterman. Good stuff.

current climate change bill "worse than nothing"

Very disturbing news out of the House (via dKos):

President Obama says the greenhouse-gas emissions cutting Waxman-Markey bill before Congress will "spark a clean energy transformation." But a new analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency casts doubt on that claim. According to page 27 of the analysis, published Tuesday, the legislation, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, would actually result in slightly less new renewable energy generation capacity by the year 2020 than if the U.S. continued on a business-as-usual path with no emissions caps.

When President Obama won, I predicted that he'd be lukewarm on progressive health care and foreign policy, but that he'd be at least excellent on climate change and renewable energy. The appointment of Nobel Physicist Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy seemed to confirm my optimism on this particular issue. But with the White House notably absent in pushing for climate change legislation that would actually stop climate change, is it possible that even on this path, both hope and change are at risk of falling short?

Legislation that takes us backwards in developing renewable energy over the next 10 years is not good legislation. Legislation that subsidizing the coal industry is not good legislation. We were promised that climate change legislation would be based on science, not politics. The politics were supposed to take care of themselves on the Biggest Issue Facing The Planet. But instead, we get politics, industry give-aways, and a lot of pretty words.

The bill also won’t sufficiently drive up the price of dirty fossil fuels to encourage a big switch to renewables, the analysis says. (Here’s how that sounds in untranslated EPA-speak: “Allowances prices are not high enough to drive a significant amount of additional low or zero-carbon energy . . . in the shorter term.”)

This isn’t quite consistent with White House talking points. On Tuesday, President Obama told reporters that the legislation before the House of Representatives “will create a set of incentives that will spur the development of new sources of energy, including wind, solar, and geothermal power,” incentives that “will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy.”

Green advocates are split on this bill, known as Waxman-Markey: Greenpeace is against it, and the Sierra Club takes the something is better than nothing approach. In this case, however, something may actually be worse than nothing.

follow-up on "centrism": need for election finance reform

To follow-up on my post this morning, WaPo reported over the weekend on the massive amounts of money that some of the very Congresspeople entrusted to write health care insurance reform legislation are receiving from the private insurance industry. TPMDC summarized:

The Washington Post reports that nearly 30 key lawmakers helping to draft health-care legislation have financial holdings in the industry, totaling nearly $11 million. This includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), with at least $50,000; Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), with between $254,000 and $560,000; and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), with at least $3.2 million.

Emphasis in original.