King County council member Jane Hague is, apparently, stonewalling the appointment of George Cheung to the King County Citizens Election Oversight Committee.
Cheung applied for the position at the encouragement of King County Elections Director Sherril Huff (via Publicola but my emphasis throughout):
Cheung says Huff urged him to apply because of his GOTV work with minority communities, particularly with Chinese voters who do not speak English. (After the 2000 Census, the federal government directed King County to pay special attention to language barriers for the growing Chinese, non-English-speaking population.) One spot on the committee designated as “representing the Chinese-speaking community” is currently vacant, and Cheung was slated to fill that spot.
Could it be? Does Jane Hague hates the idea of helping Chinese voters vote? It’s one plausible explanation.
I hope it’s wrong.
Cheung has impeccable credentials for the position. He is currently the Executive Director of a get-out-the-vote nonprofit called the Win/Win Network. And if that’s not enough…
During college, he interned with the Organization of Chinese Americans in Washington DC as a lobbyist to pass the Justice for Wards Cove Workers Act. He also worked as a project director for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in charge of designing and implementing a study of potentially discriminatory real estate practices through over 200 interviews with Massachusetts homebuyers. He was also a civil rights investigator for the state governments of Rhode Island and Washington. As a consultant, George has worked for a variety of non-profit and government agencies including APIAVote, United Way of King County, Nikkei Heritage Association of Washington and Seattle Public Utilities. In his volunteer time, George is a board member of Equal Rights Washington and the Western States Center. He holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and B.A. from Brown University in Political Science.
Impressive! So…instead of hating Chinese voters, maybe Hauge is just intimidated by Cheung’s credentials?
Because unlike Hauge, Cheung completed his Bachelors degree. All the way. And then went on to earn a Masters degree. And he didn’t need to lie about having a college degree to launch his career.
Gosh…I hope Hague isn’t that insecure….
A third plausible hypothesis comes from this observation:
Cheung [is] a Democratic PCO in the 34th Legislative District….
Is Jane Hague holding up Cheung’s nomination because he is a Democratic PCO?!? Really? The same Jane Hague who said:
I have worked hard to bring people together – bridging partisan political differences and soothing personal animosities.
[…]I “walk the talk” and I believe my bipartisan policy choices are reflective of my greater Eastside constituents.
She couldn’t be blocking the nomination for cynical partisan reasons, could she?
If not, what is it?
I refuse to believe the fourth possibility: that she’s just too goddamn drunk to get around to it.