Thanking Republican Sen. Bob Huff, Minority Leader,
CA Senate
Senator Huff is apparently leading a concerted effort to court
AsAm voters in California. He supported the STOP SCA 5
(Senate Constitutional Amendment 5) movement, aiming to
stop Democratic initiative to return "race-preference" college
admissions to CA. He also sponsored SCR 10 (Senate
Concurrent Resolution 10) on 2/9/2015, and SJR 23
(Senate Joint Resolution 23) in 2014. What do these
resolutions do?
SCR 10 "recognizes the Lunar New Year Celebration."
SJR 23 "acknowledges the history of the Chinese in
California, ... and would request Congress to adopt resolutions
of apology to the Chinese American community for the
enactment of the Chinese exclusion laws." [In comparison,
H. resolution 683 passed by the Congress in 2012,
sponsored by Rept. Judy Chu expressed regret only.]
Let Buyers Beware!
It is good to have a major political party courting for our
votes in CA. However, we shouldn't give away our votes
cheaply. 80-20 Initiative aims to help educate AsAm voters
and to prod the 2 political parties to compete to earn our vote,
with substantive deeds rather than "sweet words signifying
nothing."
Know the distinction between Resolutions and Bills
Resolutions are words, not laws. H. Resolution 683, SJR 23
and SCR 10 are all resolutions. Very often resolutions are
used by politicians as cheap ways to win votes from the
"uneducated voters", because passing resolutions are very
easy to do, owing to 3 reasons:
1) it is not a law but just sweet words,
2) it doesn't require the appropriation of money nor the setting
of penalties for anyone who violates a resolution. In
contrast, a law must set a penalty for people who violate
the law,
3) politicians customarily pass each other's resolutions. As a
former President of Delaware Senate, I know.
Bills, if passed, become laws. Passing a bill is normally
hundreds of times harder.
To illustrate the nature of resolutions: After the passage of
SJR 23, did the US Congress issue an apology? NO! Did
the Congress even bother to react to SJR 23?
To illustrate the nature of 80-20's work: In 2008, 80-20
induced Sen. Obama to agree to appoint more AsAm federal
lawyers. The result? Today the number of such judges have
tripled. The number of Appeals court AsAm judges has
increased from zero to 4.
Step by Step We Will Strengthen Ourselves!
80-20 has tried tirelessly for 16 years to help strengthen
ourselves. HELP us continue our trajectory!
