State Senate Assistant President Pro Tem Leland Yee and Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma still retain clout in the Legislature. Partially because of regional balance (with the state Senate already headed by a Northern Californian), Ma last week didn’t become Assembly speaker, which went to L.A. Assemblywoman Karen Bass. Moderates Ma and Yee differ, but that’s nothing compared to the liberal/LGBT civil war adding to San Francisco’s waning influence and the growing Latino/SoCal clout in the Legislature. San Francisco — where Willie Brown and John Burton ruled the Assembly and Senate, respectively — is now a internecine battleground as Police Commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese and gay Assemblyman Mark Leno seek to unseat lesbian incumbent state Sen. Carole Migden, whom ex-Marin legislator Joe Nation could supplant. Late Congressman Tom Lantos’ S.F.-San Mateo seat will likely stay with San Matean and ex-state Sen. Jackie Speier, locking out San Franciscans like Yee in the future. …
S.F. KOWTOW PALACE: An indication of San Francisco’s decline in influence is Yee’s legislation to sell the state-owned Cow Palace to Daly City, which was 58.5 percent APA in 2006. The concert and event venue abuts Daly City and S.F.’s largely APA Visitacion Valley neighborhood. But Yee, a S.F. resident, is snubbing the city’s mayor and liberal Board of Supervisors by denying them the chance to buy the site, let alone delay or even screw up development. Case in point: The football stadium and mall in nearby Bayview/Hunter’s Point, proposed in 1997, could have helped a shrinking African American community amidst a growing APA community. … If Santa Clara doesn’t work out, a stadium for 49ers football team might be easier in Daly City. …
HE BANGS, HE BANGS — HE RUNS?: I cringe every Lunar New Year when AsianWeek publisher and BART Director James Fang ignites the string of firecrackers outside our office window. Any misfire, it’s a bad omen … Rumors about Fang running for supervisor keep circulating, given his recent appearances with CADC president Calvin Louie and Ed Jew on Chinese- language television PSAs encouraging viewers to vote. Fang, the second-longest serving S.F. elected official (17 years) after 27-year Sheriff Mike Hennessey, is one of the few who could take his time to ponder a November candidacy. …
MOD SQUAD: The city’s leading moderate organization, Plan C, invited Fang, ESL instructor Alicia Wang and Treasure Island Development Authority President Claudine Cheng to talk about their prospective candidacies for supervisor (Fang didn’t attend). Plan C snubbed Chinatown Community Development Center chair David Chiu, a progressive who showed up, but wasn’t allowed to speak to mom-and-pop landlords of the Small Property Owners of San Francisco. …
AND THE LEFT-OUT: The Ralph Nader-Matt Gonzalez presidential ticket and a Democratic presidential nomination of Barack Obama (who won S.F. against Clinton) could drive a progressive tsunami turnout in S.F., given Gonzalez was Board of Supervisors president and the city’s highest Green Party official. That helps supe bids for Chiu and School Board member Eric Mar. A centrist Hillary Clinton nomination helps APA women like Wang and Cheng. …
TAGUBA FOR CLINTON: Retired Major General Antonio Taguba has endorsed Clinton and was phone banking on her behalf before this week’s Texas and Ohio primaries. Taguba, a backer of FilAm World War II veteran benefits who was forced to retire for exposing U.S. torture of Iraqi POWs, is among 27 flag officers supporting Clinton. …
Reach Samson Wong at (415) 321-5886 or
swong@asianweek.com.