On Dec. 11, Warren Furutani finished first in a special election called to fill a vacated California Assembly seat for District 55 in Southern California near Los Angeles. If instant-runoff voting had been used for the vote counting, he would be serving his constituents today. Instead, because he got only 49.2 percent of the vote in a five-way race, the Lakewood-based Democrat heads to a Feb. 5 runoff against two third-party candidates. Given the now-unified support of the Democratic Party, he is virtually assured of victory on Feb. 5.
Warren’s victory is the culmination of decades of community service by a man who has helped to shape the APA movement since the late 1960s, and raises expectations that the already-strong APA caucus in the state Legislature will have even more clout in the years ahead. Aside from serving as a trustee of the local Community College District and member of the Los Angeles Board of Education (both immense organizations, given the size of Los Angeles), Warren has served as an adviser to several of the most powerful officials in Los Angeles and the state of California. Once seated in the Assembly, he is well-positioned to get a leadership post and do even more for his constituents and the APA community.
While Warren works hard and deserves this honor, what does it mean for the rest of us who may aspire to elective office? If we do not have the powerful speaking and writing skills, years of experience and overflowing address book of a Warren Furutani, is elective office a realistic possibility?
The answer is definitely yes, and I encourage everyone reading this article to consider running for office, or pass this to someone who needs a little nudge to let them know they are not being arrogant or immodest by thinking that they, too, can aspire to elective office.
Here are three important lessons for potential APA candidates that flow from observing Warren’s rise in the political world:
1. Start with who you are. As a fourth-generation Japanese American, Warren Furutani has always had a strong sense of being an American of Japanese ancestry. He has worked for Japanese American groups and helped start the Manzanar Pilgrimage, which took the community back to the site of their wartime incarceration to vaccinate us against a recurrence. Yet, he also has been a singer, writer, speaker and organizer for the educational opportunity for all Americans, especially the poor, immigrants, and others relegated to the margins of the education system.
Instead of looking at his resume and saying, “Gee, I am not a lawyer or accountant, so I cannot run for office,” Warren had the self-confidence to know that an intelligent, resourceful, hardworking person can master almost anything. Through years of service, he has learned how to read balance sheets, conduct personnel hearings, and perform other jobs required by the offices he has held.
2. Start small and build from there. Warren Furutani and most of the rest of us do not have obscene amounts of money to buy our way into electoral victories. Instead, Warren called on the friends he had developed over many years of community organizing when he ran for his first school board seat. After that, he did well enough to be elected board president, and then found he had enough political visibility that his career took on its own upward trajectory.
Other prospective APA candidates should see if there are community service groups or an appointive position such as library board or PTA board that can be used to build a resume of service in the community. Then, when you run for office, you already will have name recognition and allies.
3. Don’t be afraid to fail. Both by cultural predisposition and because of our minority status in this country, APAs hate to fail. Losing in public is considered such a humiliation that many of us play it safe by serving on the staff of someone else’s campaign, when we ourselves could do equally as well as those candidates.
Warren is an example of someone who lost his previous attempt to win this Assembly position, but came back again to win. Many other politicians, including Bill Clinton and George Bush, learned painful lessons in defeat before winning later elections.
In the end, however, the only real losers are those who never aspire to serve others. If that service includes serving as an elected official, take some time in 2008 to volunteer for a candidate or cause you believe in, and see if running for office is for you.