Wednesday, September 08, 2004

Elaine Chao & AsAm officials' ACCOUNTABILITY to us

One reason the AsAm community is politically weak is that we've
NOT asked for ACCOUNTABILITY from AsAm elected or appointed officials.

Here is what you CAN and CAN'T EXPECT from AsAm officials.

# # # # # # # # # # #
CAN'T EXPECT: To do things that will lead to the DESTRUCTION of
his/her political career, e.g. advocating benefits for AsAms only,
when less than 5% of his/her voters are AsAms or when he/she is an appointed official.
CAN EXPECT: To fight for a project that benefits AsAms ONLY when more than 65% of the votes he/she got in the last election came from AsAms. That is, re-election will not be a problem.

CAN'T EXPECT: To speak out on foreign policy issues, when he/she is not a federal official or a federal official whose duties are domestic.
CAN EXPECT: To speak up on foreign policy that YOU favor, if
he/she is a federal official whose duties include the foreign
policies.

CAN'T EXPECT: To hire exclusively AsAm employees in his/her office.
CAN EXPECT: To hire AsAms that is commensurate to the amount of campaign help (votes & money) received from our community.

CAN'T EXPECT: To serve our community AFTER retirement or defeat. He/She deserves a private life too.
CAN EXPECT: To contribute his/her political know-how once in a while, especially if he/she raised a lot of $$ from us to run a big
race & lost. He/She has some obligation to repay our community.

CAN'T EXPECT: To do favors for YOU.
CAN EXPECT: To stand up for the entire AsAm community,
whenever there is a fight for equal justice & opportunity.

CAN'T EXPECT: To exercise his/her authority to favor AsAms.
CAN EXPECT: To treat AsAms NO WORSE than other Americans.

&nb sp; # # # # # # # # #

In that last item, ELAINE CHAO HAS BEEN VERY DISAPPOINTING.

The Labor Department was charged with enforcing EO 11246, a law
that has been used to break the glass ceiling for all Americans except AsAms. She is the Labor Secretary. She is an AsAm. She doesn't risk her political career if she quietly or noisily enforces an EXISTING law in an equitable manner for AsAms. No one in America would expect her to do less. She could NEVER be charged with favoring AsAms ONLY since it has been enforced first for blacks, then for women and then for Hispanics. She must stand up for us. We need to hold her ACCOUNTABLE.

On 9/2 in New York City, Elaine Chao cried before Chinese reporters saying that she has received unfair criticism bur preferred not to answer back. 80-20 shall fight for Elaine Chao against unfair criticism. However, 80-20 wants her to answer 80-20's charge that she, as the Labor Secretary, has NOT enforced EO 11246 for AsAms. Instead of crying and saying that she was proud of her roots, she needs to prove that she treats AsAms NO WORSE than any other Americans.

80-20 has gathered a lot of evidence that AsAms face a glass ceiling. See http://www.80-20initiative.net/glassc.html. Elaine Chao needs to speak to her enforcement of EO 11246 for Asian Americans by addressing such evidence.