About API Vote 2000

BY SAMSON WONG

A new Asian American registration effort, API Vote 2000, has raised awareness but also eyebrows--as seen in Tuesday's San Francisco Independent story about what the ties might be between the nonpartisan nonprofit group and the re-election campaign of Supervisor Mabel Teng.

One group raising questions--not leveling charges--is the San Francisco branch of Common Cause, which on Tuesday pulled a discussion item about API Vote 2000 from the agenda of its closed-door meeting with the S.F. League of Women Voters.

Some of the questions that have been asked: 1. Has API Vote 2000 broken campaign laws? 2. If not, has it broken the spirit of the law? and 3. Is it wrong to accept money from a not politically correct, but politically suspect group?

On the first question, no one has come up with evidence of any unethical link between Teng's re-election campaign and the voter group. While it's true that API Vote 2000's Ken Kong, Warren Hellman and Andrew Wong all have some past or current connection to Teng, no one has proved anything beyond that.

Wong, a long-time political consultant, has indeed done work for Teng. He's also run Frank Chong's bid for school board, and his wife was Teng's campaign treasurer for college board in 1994. However, keep in mind that San Francisco's fledgling community of Asian American political consultants and voter-registration activists is small--those within it know one another and have often worked together. The community of Asian American consultants basically consists of Wong, Tom Hsieh, Jr. and Ron Wong. Kong, David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee, state Democratic Party Chairman Alice Bulos, and Cesar Allegria of the Filipino American Council of San Mateo represent the handful of Asian Americans leading voter registration efforts in San Francisco and Daly City.

Furthermore, consider one source criticizing the links between Teng and API Vote 2000: the San Francisco Neighbors Association, whose co-founder, Rose Tsai, is running for supervisor. It's well known that SFNA and Tsai haven't been Teng's friends when it comes to issues such as owner-move in evictions.

Someone else who could benefit from the API Vote 2000 scrutiny is Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who's fighting with Teng for the board presidency. A poll taken by Teng's own campaign manager, John Whitehurst, showed Ammiano and Teng, respectively, in first and second place for November--and the candidate in first place will head the board.

That reality has heated up the rivalry between the two supervisors, who, ironically, share a similar ideology on many issues. Take this summer's brouhaha over a Cantonese-language radio show, in which Teng referred to Ammiano as "that homosexual supervisor"--according to an Ammiano aide's translation. And now, there's this stink over API Vote 2000, which could play directly into Ammiano's hands: he legislated and campaigned on a platform to require nonprofit groups that get city money to disclose more about their operations.

ROPED IN? On to the second question: Is API Vote 2000 breaking the "spirit" of the campaign law? Critics suggest that even if there is no case that local campaign laws were broken, the group is exploiting a loophole that needs to be addressed.

In San Francisco, there are limits on how much Teng can spend on her campaign (approximately $250,000) and on what she can raise from each donor ($500). These campaign limits and the increasing costs of campaigns make voter registration an increasing extravagance. Therefore, API Vote 2000 has followed the same path of the 20-year-old Chinese American Voters Education Committee: Become a non-profit and accept unlimited tax deductible contributions. In doing so, however, API Vote 2000 has agreed to be nonpartisan and unrelated to political campaigns. That means Teng's campaign should not direct what API Vote 2000 should be doing. Is that happening? It depends whom you ask.

DOWNTOWN MONEY: Finally, the question as to whom to accept money from comes up in connection with the Committee on Jobs, which represents largely downtown business interests. COJ's co-chair, Warren Hellman, also co-chairs Teng's campaign, and COJ or downtown corporations have given money to the group.

Still, the criticism of API Vote 2000 for accepting COJ donations may be more about political correctness than about breaking the law: If you're not politically correct, you're politically suspect. Accepting COJ's money, it seems for some, is the equivalent of the Bay Guardian or Frontlines accepting money from the Tobacco Institute.

Still, API Vote 2000 isn't the only Asian American effort helped by COJ. Another is CAVEC, which for almost 10 years has enjoyed a reputation for being aboveboard. CAVEC has received corporate donations from Chevron, Bank of America, PG&E and Hellman & Friedman (a firm headed by the same Hellman as COJ's). In fact, at its February dinner, CAVEC received close to $40,000 from downtown sources.

As I noted here two weeks ago, neither the local Republican nor the Democratic parties have had the incentive or the resources to enfranchise Asian American voters. From their perspective, COJ and downtown sources have recognized that the emergence of an Asian American voting bloc might manifest as a "swing vote" favorable to their interests, and their consistent donations over the past decade have reflected a strategic blueprint to bring Asian Americans into the political arena. That money has helped CAVEC increase the Asian American electorate from less than 25,000 voters in 1984 to over 70,000 in 1996.

TAKING A RIDE: Finance Committee Chair Teng's "no more excuses" fully-funded Muni budget includes funding the new Alcatel computer system. The city is fining Alcatel $25,000 daily for not promptly installing its computer system on-line, on-time.

How about fining politicians 25,000 votes per day at the next election if Muni isn't fixed? That represents four to five days of votes to get elected supervisor (let alone board president). Then again, it might not work since the Department of Elections has had its own on-line, on-time computer problems.

Wondering when the train is coming can be disheartening, but wondering whether you'll make it alive can be heart-stopping. The only times I've taken Muni (particularly the N-Judah streetcar) is when my car has been in the shop. In my recent rides during the day, I've seen a rider spouting racist comments at two elderly people who were conversing in Chinese. In another case, an Asian American passenger was slugged across the cheek for spitting at a young lady. In yet another, a passenger sitting in the back of the bus grabbed an Asian American youth from behind and ripped off his gold neck chain.

All told, I probably have ridden muni less than 10 times per year since 1990--so these recent incidents may have been far from common. But I'm not about to find out.

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