SENATOR TED LIEU'S RECORD ON CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES
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Ted Lieu’s parents immigrated to America to seek the American Dream. As a child, Ted grew up poor and his family sold gifts at flea markets to make ends meet. Through hard work and perseverance, Ted’s parents eventually opened several gift stores and Ted worked at those stores as a child. Ted went on to attend Stanford University and then Georgetown Law. Ted joined the US military as an officer on active duty because he believes he can never give back to this country all that it has given to his family. One reason he entered politics is to ensure the American Dream remains accessible to all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or social-economic status.
•Increased Diversity in Judicial and Political/Leadership Appointments: Ted Lieu believes government should better reflect the diverse communities of California and America. Ted has fought hard to increase the number of minorities in leadership and government positions. He repeatedly challenged Governor Schwarzenegger to increase the number of minorities and women for judicial and political appointments. Governor Schwarzenegger’s judicial diversity rate was unacceptably low during his first few years in office. After Ted was elected Chair of the Asian Pacific Islander (API) Legislative Caucus, he publicly fought the Governor in the media, held press conferences, and wrote Op-Eds challenging the low diversity appointment rate. As a result of those efforts, the Governor nearly doubled the number of women and minorities in his judicial appointments from 16% to 33%.
•Increased Funding for Minority Non-profits: As Chair of the API Legislative Caucus, Ted Lieu joined with the Chairs of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucuses to take on the largest charitable foundations because of their inadequacies in funding for minority non-profits. In California, API non-profits received less than 1% of foundation funding. Ted believed that was unacceptable, especially since APIs are now the second largest minority group in California. As a result of his efforts, Ted help achieve a historic agreement with the top foundations to increase funding to minority non-profits by $30 million.
•Stood Up Against Discrimination: Ted Lieu was one of the first leaders in the fight to reverse the Ladies Professional Golf Tournament’s discriminatory English-only policy for golfers. Working with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and numerous other civil rights organizations to fight the LPGA, Ted successfully forced the LPGA to reverse its patently discriminatory policy. When radio talk show host Adam Carolla mocked Chinese Americans and the Chinese language on radio, Ted Lieu was one of the first lawmakers to raise the issue and call for his apology. Mr. Carolla eventually apologized.
•Authored and Coauthored Civil Rights Legislation: Ted has authored and co-authored numerous bills to prevent discrimination, reduce hate crimes, and improve the quality of life for all minorities. Ted has also repeatedly fought against state budget cuts that would have had a disproportionate impact on minority communities.
•Recognized for His Strong Record on Civil Rights: Because of Ted’s record of standing up for minority communities, his colleagues elected him twice as the Chair of the API Legislative Caucus, where Ted helped expand the number of API legislators to eleven, the most in California history. Ted also received the Federal Asian Pacific American Council Leadership award for his work to end discrimination. The Washington Post has also published his work exposing biases against Asian Pacific Islanders.
