| Republican State Representative, Betty Brown of Terrell, announced her bid to run for re-election to House District 4, indicating she has no worries about being a high priority target of a large, national based Asian-American organization known as the Asian Political Leadership Fund.
You'll recall that the twelve year incumbent made news by demonstrating her, and her Party's level of intolerance during Voter Suppression Committee hearings this past spring, by interrupting Ramey Ko and his testimony with this bigoted remark:
"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese - I understand it's a rather difficult language - do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"
According to Capitol Inside, the Asian Political Leadership Fund intends to launch television advertising against the intolerant Republican utilizing the following script:
"The world should see Texas as a big, modern, important state with the twelfth largest economy on earth.
Unfortunately, some of our politicians still seem pretty small.
Betty Brown - she made national news when she said U.S. citizens with Asian names should give up their birthright in order to vote.
If Texas is going to play a bigger role on the world stage, shouldn't our leaders be bigger, too?"
Matt Glazer rightfully pointed out in April of this year that Asian-Americans are a growing population in Texas. Clearly the remarks by ultra-conservative Brown have drawn the community's ire--and rightfully so. Brown has indicated that she intends to keep Voter Suppression as one of her top issues in her platform for re-election as a Republican in 2010---that, and say "no" all the time versus proposing constructive, forward-thinking legislation to solve problems of every day Texans.
The question is who will the Asian Political Leadership Fund actively back? In 2008, Brown easily won re-election to a sixth term in defeating former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Victor Morales. Where Brown ran into deep trouble was in the Republican Primary, where she squeaked by with only 52.5% of the vote. Will this national Asian-American organization back a Republican challenger or hold their gun powder for a general election? My bet is that the Leadership Fund will do whatever it takes, primary or general, to knock the intolerant Terrell Republican off the ballot. |
