California: Four APAs Win Majority in S.F., Prop 52 Fails to Pass National: Asian Pacific American Women Candidates Score Big Proposition Results
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Fiona Ma will face Ron Dudum in December runoffs. Photo by May Chow.

California

Four APAs Win Majority in S.F., Prop 52 Fails to Pass

By May Chow and Neela Banerjee
AsianWeek

Statewide Elections:

The governor’s race, with Gray Davis and Bill Simon both pouring millions of dollars into their campaigns at the last minute, proved to be neck-to-neck for most of the night. Davis pulled ahead in the end. The real story here was the success of Green Party candidate Peter Camejo, who earned enough of the vote to cause a real stir and draw attention to the problems with the two party system.

In other statewide news, Leland Yee and Mark Leno both made it into the California Assembly, winning their districts handily.

Proposition 52, same day voter registration, failed to pass — analysts say this was mostly due to fear of increased voter fraud. This proposition targeted ethnic communities who would be empowered by an easier registration process.

SF Supervisors:

This Tuesday, all eyes were looking to the Sunset’s highly contested supervisor race, where nine candidates were up for Supervisor Leland Yee’s seat. Chinese Americans Ed Jew, Marks Lam, Andrew Lee and Fiona Ma all ran for this prized seat on San Francisco’s only APA majority supervisorial district. APAs make up 53 percent of the Sunset District.

With champagne glasses on hand and eyes glued to the television, dozens of Fiona Ma supporters squeezed into Rick’s Restaurant and Bar on Taraval Street, hoping for a victory celebration.

“I’m feeling really good right now,” Ma said, whose in-laws from France flew in to support her on Tuesday night. “It’s definitely amazing to be around my family and friends. And we’ll just see what happens.”

Over at Andrew Lee’s campaign party on 19th Avenue, a blues band provided the entertainment. Lee, whose campaign race with Fiona turned nasty at times, was seen as Fiona’s main competition.

a. Bowman Leong, of the Taxicab Commission, said the public felt the rivalry between Lee and Ma.

“The campaign got nasty at times,” said Leong, who came out to support Lee. “But I think Ma made it nasty. The band and music thing, Andrew put aside that issue and focused on the race, but it was Ma who kept it alive.”

Leong said that even though many spoke about the split votes among the APA candidates, Lee didn’t run on an APA-centric platform.

“He was inclusive of all people,” Leong said. “He didn’t focus on the ethnicity of his voters. ‘Cause you have to remember that although 53 percent of the Sunset are APAs, only about one third go out and vote.”

As final numbers trickled in, Ron Dudum and Fiona Ma were, at one point, neck-to-neck. It became apparent that Fiona Ma was gradually breaking away from the other APA candidates. Ma’s lead over Lee was growing.

Loud cheers emanated from the crowd at Rick’s, as numbers indicated that Ma was going to be in runoff election with Dudum. Final numbers showed Dudum with 3,573 votes to Ma’s 3,521 votes.

“Today’s been a long day, so tonight I’m partying and then going home to sleep,” Ma said. “But first thing tomorrow morning, we’re going to plan for the next five weeks. It’s going to be fun.”

Across the city, Chris Daly, incumbent and fierce progressive supervisorial candidate for District 6, was celebrating a huge win — garnering more than 50 percent of the votes in his area.

“I’m happy and excited to win,” Daly said at his party at Fina Estampa on Van Ness. “We didn’t question whether or not I was going to win, but to win by more than 50 percent really took us back.”

Daly triumphed over smear campaigns by a number of San Francisco media outlets and lauded the district election system.

“I think San Franciscans are beginning to like and take to the idea of district elections,” he said.

Mabel Teng won the assessor-recorder race by a large margin. Photo by Jennie Sue.

Mabel Teng, a former San Francisco supervisor, won triumphantly in the race for assessor-recorder against long-time incumbent Doris Ward, who had recently been running a nasty “Truth About Teng” campaign.

™ed-faced with excitement, Teng spoke warmly to her campaign supporters at Moonstar Restaurant, “This is amazing. I was only hoping to win by one vote.”

Breaking into tears, Teng thanked her family and staff for their support.

“Today we built bridges and we brought the San Francisco community together. Look in this room, we are Asian, we are Chinese, we are Filipinos, we are African American, we are labor, we are lesbians, we are gays, we are Latino, we are women, we are men. Look around the room, this is the new machine in San Francisco,” Teng said. “This is the new machine that will elect dedicated people who are dedicated to public service.”

Even Chinese Consul General Wong showed up to congratulate Teng, saying that the Chinese government was proud of her success.

About the tough campaign, Teng said that she was confident throughout.

“I think the voters responded to our message that the office needed to be overhauled,” Teng said.

In other citywide races, Eddie Chin was re-elected to the school board and Lawrence Wong was re-elected to the Community College Board.

Green Party candidate and SFUSD teacher Sarah Lipson was a surprising winner on the school board, coming in just after incumbent Dan Kelley.

Progressive school board member Eric Mar, who endorsed Lipson, said that she will be a refreshing addition to the board.

Said Mar: “She is really fearless.”

Lipson may tip the School Board scales towards the progressive side, with support from fellow Green Party member Mark Sanchez, Mar and Emilio Cruz.

“I think there could be a real change on the school board,” Mar said.

There’s Care But No Hope:

It was a mixed bag of victories when it came to propositions this year. San Franciscans were still refusing the idea of public power and Prop. D lost, but only by five points. Gavin Newsom’s Care Not Cash, or Prop. N, won by nearly 20 points, dousing Ammiano’s Prop. O, which would have counteracted some of N’s components. Proposition B, the affordable housing bond, won a rousing victory as well.

Proposition R, or HOPE, touted as the key to affordable home ownership by proponents, suffered a serious loss.

Michael Sullivan, on the board of directors for Plan C — a newly formed political group working for solutions to quality of life problems in the city, felt that the loss was due to the fact that a lot of voters just didn’t understand what HOPE was really saying.

“A lot of the natural supporters of R, or middle class homeowners, didn’t understand it,” Sullivan said. “They were scared that this was the end of rent control and property owners thought it was too pro-tenant.”

Sullivan also said that the opponents of Prop. R told lies about it repeatedly.

“Tragically, this makes San Francisco a place where only the wealthy can have a home,” Sullivan said.

On the other side, Michael Omerberg — the executive director of the Affordable Housing Alliance — believes their campaign was successful because they proved that they were not against home ownership.

“The yes campaign overestimated the desire for home ownership,” Omerberg said. “HOPE was a big experiment that could have gone really wrong.”

At the Polls:

While San Francisco’s APA population is over 30 percent of the city, the voting population is not nearly as high. In the last few months, voter education and registration drives have been working over time to make sure APAs, especially immigrants and monolingual citizens, join in the democratic process.

Hverall turnout for this election was at 41.8 percent in San Francisco.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Zheng, a resident of Chinatown, had just finished voting at the Senior Center on Stockton Street. When asked which propositions he thought were most important, Zheng replied, “What propositions?”

He said that he voted for people with Chinese or Asian surnames.

“I just voted for those with Asian last names because we need Asian representation,” Zheng explained in Cantonese. “Without that we’re nothing.”