Fund-Raising Scandal Has Chilling Effect Asian Americans Hurt By Suspicions, Locke Says

When Gary Locke was a student at Boston University in the early 1970s, he said, he would buy heavy rice sacks in Chinatown, haul them onto the subway, and carry them on foot to his apartment in Cambridge.

Friday, Locke returned to the city of his alma mater for the first time in more than 15 years. And he came back triumphant, not only the Democratic governor of Washington but the first Asian American governor ever in the mainland United States.

But Locke, who delivered the keynote address to the Asian American Journalists Association at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, said before the speech that the controversy surrounding Democratic fund-raisers like John Huang and Charlie Trie has had a “chilling effect” on other Asian Americans who have considered running for office.

“I’ve heard from people around the country that Asian Americans don’t want to be involved, they don’t want to be scrutinized,” Locke told reporters Friday. “We have every right to be part of the political process.”

Locke became the nation’s first Chinese American governor in November, when he beat Ellen Craswell, a Republican grandmother who had promised to use “God’s plan” to lead the state of Washington. Much of his support, financial and otherwise, came from the state’s Asian American community.

The governor said Friday that he has not closely followed the congressional investigations into how the political parties solicited contributions before last year’s election. Those inquiries have focused largely on illegal or improper contributions from donors with ties to Asian corporations and the Chinese government.

But Locke said community leaders and activists have told him that some potential candidates on the West Coast have taken pause at the scrutiny given to Asian American donors, most of whom gave legally.

He said he has received calls from reporters asking for information about people with Asian American surnames who contributed to his campaign, whether or not they had any connection to figures like Huang and Trie. One reporter, he said, was investigating a person with an Asian American surname who was actually Caucasian.

“The press needs to be mindful of the impact it has on ethnic groups all over America,” he said. “During the Iran hostage crisis, people of Iranian descent came under suspicion in many negative ways.”

During his campaign, Locke received more than $1,000 from Huang, a central figure in the campaign-contribution controversy surrounding President Clinton. Huang also helped organize a fund-raiser that garnered about $19,000 for the candidate’s campaign.

But Locke said his campaign hired an auditing firm after the election and found no major improprieties.

The fund-raising scandal has taken away from some of the unprecedented political gains made by Asian Americans in the past year, he said, but that should not discourage them from donating to campaigns and running for office.