Politics Briefing 2/27/2023

Don’t forget: U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai and Dr. Arati Prabhakar, who is the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, are members of the Cabinet but not secretaries.

There, she was the lead attorney in a case that helped expose a Los Angeles County sweatshop for exploiting trafficked Thai garment workers, recovering $4 million in back wages, and later pushed Congress to create visas for victims of trafficking and forced labor.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is backing former New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D), the first openly gay person to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and who sat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure before losing his seat, which he held for a decade, to Rep. Pat Ryan (R-New York) in 2022. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called Banga a “renowned executive” who is well-equipped to lead the World Bank’s agenda that is newly focused on climate change, reports POLITICO’s Ben White and Zack Colman.

Banga’s swift nomination comes as climate leaders are pushing to overhaul the institution, writes AP’s Ellen Knickmeyer. The World Bank has faced criticism for not adequately responding to less-wealthy nations’ efforts to curb climate change, charges that came as Malpass refused to agree that fossil fuels were changing the world’s climate in a 2022 interview.

No stranger to Washington: Banga previously served on former President Barack Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and was a founding trustee of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum.

Banga was born in India, where he was raised Sikh. He became a U.S. citizen in 2007, writes Axios’ Ben German.

Chung is the first Asian American judge to sit on the 3rd Circuit, creating an even number (7-7) of Democratic and Republican appointees on the court. It hears cases from New Jersey, Delaware, parts of Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Chung’s appointment was Biden’s 99th since entering office. The president has since reached 100 judicial confirmations, outpacing the rate of both the Trump and Obama administrations.

The deal, called a Memorandum of Understanding, follows similar agreements with the Marshall Islands and Palau.

Expiration dates loom over the Compact of Free Association, a legal agreement between the U.S. and the three Pacific Island nations dating back to 1980, which is up for renewal this year for Micronesia and the Marshall Islands and in 2024 for Palau.

What Pacific Islanders stand to lose: The agreements allow citizens of the three nations to enter the United States without a visa, permitting them to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely as permanent residents, a provision left in limbo as negotiations stall, writes Caitlin Mitchell for Honolulu Civil Beat.

Remember: In 2022, Biden tapped former U.S. ambassador Joseph Yun to serve as a special envoy for compact negotiations after lawmakers pushed for the post to recognize island nations’ strategic importance to the U.S. military.

“The incarceration of Japanese Americans reminds us what happens when racism, fear, and xenophobia go unchecked,” said Biden in a statement. “We reaffirm the Federal Government’s formal apology to Japanese Americans for the suffering inflicted by these policies.” 

Survivors and their families have in recent years advocated for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans. The federal government issued redress to impacted Japanese Americans in the form of payments after making a formal apology in 1988.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) named Khanna a member of the bipartisan Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party earlier this month, a position from which he said he plans to “be tough on the Chinese Communist Party while unequivocally condemning anti-Asian racism and the increase in hate crimes targeting the Asian American community.”

Chip trip: Khanna led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan last week to explore potential partnerships to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Khanna will also be the next chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, the first Indian American to hold the position. He said he will push issues related to Indian diaspora members in the U.S. into the caucus’ focus amid rising reports of Hindu nationalism, Islamophobia, and caste discrimination on college campuses, writes NBC News' Sakshi Venkatraman.

“Lance Gooden’s slanderous accusation of disloyalty against Rep. Chu is dangerous, unconscionable and xenophobic,” said Jeffries in a statement.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, which Chu chairs, issued a statement condemning the comments as “fear mongering [that] only further endangers our communities.” Caucus member Ted Lieu (D-California) added on Twitter: “Attacking the loyalty of Asian Americans like @RepJudyChu is a racist trope that has harmed Asian Americans throughout US history.”

In 2009, Chu became the first Chinese American woman to be elected to Congress after serving as a Monterey Park city councilmember, mayor, and California state Assemblymember.

Community members at the meeting asked for culturally competent staff and resources, reports the Pasadena Star-News’ Anissa Rivera.

“Will I see someone who looks like me when I do reach out?” one meeting attendee said.

Though Ramaswamy, 37, made no mention of his party affiliation during a three-and-a-half-minute announcement video, he entered as a Republican in a filing with the Federal Election Commission, notes POLITICO’s Sam Stein.

If successful, Ramaswamy has said he would “end affirmative action” and “dismantle the climate religion that shackles the United States,” as well as pursue a decoupling from “Communist China,” which he bills as America’s long-running enemy. 

The political newcomer, who left his executive post at Roivant Sciences, the company he founded, in the weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to pursue his writing interests and political ambitions, briefly considered a run for the Senate seat in Ohio, writes The New Yorker’s Sheelah Kolhatkar.

The “Woke, Inc.” author has appeared dozens of times as a guest on conservative media outlet Fox News’ primetime shows where he frequently slams critical race theory and corporations prioritizing social good, a practice known as environmental, social, and governance investing.

Ramaswmay isn’t the only Asian American in the GOP primary so far: Former South Carolina Gov. and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is Indian American, became the first candidate to challenge former President Donald Trump in the Republican race, reports The Yappie’s John Camara. 

Hirono, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has spearheaded the fight to close down Red Hill, a World War II-era fuel storage facility that was responsible for leaks affecting more than 93,000 residents in 2021, reports Spectrum News’ Michelle Broder Van Dyke.

Both the Democratic primary and general election are set to be easy wins for Hirono, who won her 2018 re-election in a landslide, beating challenger Ron Curtis (R) with 71.2% of the vote.

If elected, Gym, who is Korean American, would be the city’s first Asian American and first woman to serve as mayor. Gym became Philadelphia’s first Asian American city councilmember when she was first elected in 2015.

In a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-1 in voter registration, the race will likely be decided in the May primary. The field of nine prominent Democrats vying for nomination, including five former city councilmembers, is the largest the city has seen since the 70s.

High levels of violent crime have been a dominant issue in the race. Gym, along with other candidates, has said that the city government, including police, should do more to address crime, but also emphasized that “under my watch we will not roll back the clock on civil rights.”