Bay NewsVoter Drive Raises Questions About Teng

Common Cause looking at API Vote 2000's links to supervisor

BY JULIE D. SOO

Photo by Julie D. Soo

Ex-Teng aide Ken Kong heads API Vote 2000, a new voter-registration effort that by law must remain nonpartisan.

Common Cause, a national political watchdog group with offices in San Francisco, has put an Asian American voter-registration effort closely tied to Supervisor Mabel Teng on its watch list.

Charlie Marsteller, a co-leader of the San Francisco group, said friends of members had called Common Cause about API Vote 2000, a new group led by Ken Kong, Teng's former legislative aide.

"There have been reports of possible entanglements with candidates," said Marsteller, who quickly cautioned, "That doesn't necessarily mean candidate control, though, or that there is any kind of control committee. It's just something we're looking into. We've just heard allegations."

Common Cause maintains that so far, the group has seen no concrete evidence to substantiate the allegations, and until it does, it will not take action. However, the groups' increased scrutiny has been well known among the press and led to a Tuesday article in the San Francisco Independent that Teng called a "hit piece."

"What's the news?" asked John Whitehurst, Teng's campaign consultant, who said he believed the attacks were racially motivated by the mostly white Common Cause chapter. "Would there be the same questions if this were not a voter registration group directed to pan-Asians?"

Not even three months old, API Vote 2000 has raised a lot of eyebrows for being so new. Part of that has to do with its success: The group has raised $80,000 in private money from its board members' efforts and has registered some 2,000 voters. But part of the scrutiny comes from allegations that the group is a front for Teng and that Teng's supporters have told Chinatown insiders that they could still help the supervisor, who has reached her $250,000 campaign fundraising limit, by donating money to API Vote 2000 instead.

At least three of the 11 board members, William Wong, Steve Lew and Adrienne Pon, have given money to Teng's re-election effort. Furthermore, political consultant Andy Wong, whom API Vote 2000 has brought in to direct voter education efforts, is also helping out with Teng's re-election effort, and Teng's campaign finance director, Warren Hellman of the Committee on Jobs, has solicited funds from downtown interests on behalf of API Vote 2000.

Kong, however, pointed out that Asian American political circles are small, and it's not unusual to meet the same players. "We're all friends and we support one another's efforts. That doesn't mean that we are doing anything that favors one candidate over another. I've known Mabel [Teng] for over 15 years, and I've also been long-time friends with board members [Wong, Lew and Pon]."

Andy Wong, now mostly involved with the campaign of school board appointee Frank Chong, agrees that it's hard to escape to what people may paint as an inside circle. "The same people volunteer and are active. We forge personal relationships. I've known Mabel for 15 years and Ken [Kong] for 20 years--we studied physics together and played basketball together." Referring to the Independent article, Wong said the piece "just threw out conjectures." Teng herself denounced the piece. She said she was not surprised to see a double standard for minorities in politics, as is the case in other realms.

"This supposed attack convinces me that we have a long way to go for empowerment," Teng said.

She said that Kong's departure for API Vote 2000 was a loss, not a coup, for her personally. "When its board wanted to hire Ken, it was a personal loss for me," Teng said. "But, my sacrifice for the community will ... benefit all Asian candidates."

Even supervisor candidate Rose Tsai, whose San Francisco Neighbors Association has opposed Teng on many issues, expressed dismay about the increasing brouhaha over API Vote 2000, saying, "I support anyone who wants to register voters; it's a good thing."

Tsai expressed her reservations about the Independent article, in which SFNA colleague Julie Lee was quoted as saying API Vote 2000 was "set up to work for Mabel's benefit." Said Tsai: "It's not the job of individuals to police or place accusations in the media, but to allow federal agencies or authorities to investigate allegations."

Common Cause's Marsteller, who says he has spoken with several reporters about the issue, nonetheless maintains that he, too, wants nothing but an aboveboard, straightforward process. Still, in San Francisco, Marsteller's group, which for 28 years has promoted itself as a nonpartisan citizens' lobby fighting for honest government, has no listing in the phone book. Marsteller says his chapter was formally recognized just a couple of years ago even though it has been plugging along for nearly two decades.

The local group devotes the bulk of its energy to investigating "process issues": ethics, campaign finance, campaign limits, sunshine ordinances and disclosure issues. The big focus lately has been on lobbyists and political consultants.

It has spent relatively little energy on investigating Bay Area candidates directly, Marsteller said. One notable exception he brought up, though, was his group's investigation into 1991 allegations that BART board member James Fang had fronted a voter-registration group for his own interests. The group two years later filed a formal complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission after what Marsteller says was an exhaustive investigation. Still, the allegations were eventually dismissed by the commission and local prosecutors. (Fang, now BART board president, is also president of AsianWeek.)

Marsteller says he's genuinely concerned with the effect such allegations might have on minority empowerment--indeed, he says, his group itself is working with Chinese American Voter Education Committee (CAVEC) in setting up a supervisor candidate debate next month. Still, voter-registration efforts like Fang's and more recently Teng's are, almost by definition, geared toward non-whites.

Marsteller admits that the San Francisco chapter's board and its 2,000 members are "mostly white-Anglo," including all of its 15 board members. "Like the League [of Women Voters], we want to do more minority outreach," Marsteller said.

He's worried, though, that the allegations swirling around API Vote 2000, like those that mushroomed into the national fundraising scandals, could ultimately do damage to the goal of registering more Asian American voters. Even if charges are dropped, he said, a formal claim and investigation could "create confusion with individual communities and in the public."

Still, though, API Vote 2000 seems to be off to a strong start. Last week, the group launched a formal fundraising campaign at Hotel Milano's M Point Restaurant, attended by Teng, Supervisor Michael Yaki and other officials. Mayor Willie Brown made a quick appearance; the event was one of 11 on his calendar that day.

Kong's goal is to raise $150,000 for the estimated annual budget--about twice as much as has been raised to date. Since opening its doors July 1, the group has registered thousands of voters and has helped more than 2,000 voters apply for absentee ballots.

Moreover, in fronting the drive to register more Asian Americans, the organization has developed strong links with most of the city's diverse Asian American groups, including most of the big players--among them the Asian Law Caucus, Chinatown Community Development Center, Kimochi Senior Services, Pacific Islander Democratic Club and Self-Help for the Elderly.

For now, Kong hopes to take the group's voter-empowerment message beyond San Francisco through public service announcements throughout the Bay Area. "We should focus on unity of the Asian community," said the political veteran, whose roots, like Teng's, date to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and farther back yet. "Our efforts will benefit the community and all Asian candidates."

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