Texas congressman questions Rep. Judy Chu’s loyalty + Ashby offers a history lesson
Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!
TEXAS REPUBLICAN QUESTIONS REP. CHU’S LOYALTY
California congresswoman Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, is an American citizen. But that hasn’t stopped Texas Republican Rep. Lance Gooden from doubting her loyalty.
“I question her either loyalty or competence,” Gooden said in a Wednesday Fox News interview. “If she doesn’t realize what’s going on then she’s totally out of touch with one of her core constituencies.”
Gooden was criticizing Chu for speaking up in support of President Joe Biden’s pick of Dominic Ng to lead U.S. trade interests in Asia. Gooden accused Ng, who lives in California and chairs the East West Bank, of working on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.
Chu fired back on Thursday in a statement shared with NBC News.
“Rep. Gooden’s comments on Fox News questioning my loyalty to the USA is absolutely outrageous,” said Chu. “It is based on false information spread by an extreme, right-wing website. Furthermore, it is racist. I very much doubt that he would be spreading these lies were I not of Chinese American descent.”
Chu is the first Chinese-American woman to be elected to Congress, winning her first term in 2009.
On Friday, Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, tweeted in support of Chu and Ng.
“I condemn these racist comments, which harm our nation and threaten our AAPI communities,” Pelosi wrote.
The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, which is chaired by Chu, also issued a condemnatory response, saying “this type of racist targeting and profiling of Chinese Americans by right-wing extremists is not only xenophobic, it is incredibly dangerous,” and called on Republican House leadership to also condemn the remarks.
ASHBY OFFERS CAPITOL HISTORY LESSON VIA TWITTER
Pop quiz: The colors in the California Assembly and Senate chambers are inspired by what legislative body?
If you guessed the U.K. Parliament, you win!
That’s just one of the many historical California Capitol tidbits shared by Sacramento-area State Sen. Angelique Ashby — with a little help from California State Library spokesman Alex Vassar — in a Twitter thread Friday.
“The Assembly Chambers are decorated in green to remind people of the fields (the Assembly had the role of House of Commons). The Senate is decorated in red, since that’s the color used by the House of Lords in England (the upper house),” Ashby wrote in one tweet.
Among the history lessons provided by Ashby were that five cities — Monterey, San Jose, Vallejo, Benicia and San Francisco — were capitals of California before Sacramento, that the desks in the Senate are the same ones used when the Capitol opened in 1870, and that the Capitol Christmas tree lighting ceremony dates back to the early 1930s.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“With the Pandora’s box of white supremacy & antisemitism fully open, we can expect — & are seeing — more & more brazen hatred. Until we send an unequivocal message as a society that this is never acceptable, it’ll continue & will keep tipping over into violence.”
- Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, via Twitter.
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