"Boring" Gary Locke's Secret Immigrant Shame
Seattle journalist Tim Egan, blogging for The New York Times, quotes a Texas Senator as calling the new Secretary of Commerce "boring," which is surely not news to those of us who remember Gary Locke as governor of this state. But, as our Rick Anderson has written before, Locke's record isn't so squeaky clean. And our Mark D. Fefer has written about Locke's unseemly lobbying after he left office in Olympia. (And let's not forget Knute Berger's examination of Locke's snoozy appeal.)
What's new, or actually old, is Egan's examination of Locke's citizenship. "I think my grandfather claimed he was born here, but the birth records were destroyed," our ex-guv told him in a recent interview. This because of the notorious, racist Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, and which remained on the books for a half-century. Grandson Locke was born here, no question; but now the new Secretary of Commerce is charged with running the decennial census—counting citizens whose papers are in order, or not. As Egan reminds us, "the census is supposed to be a count of all residents of the United States—'actual enumeration,' not just citizens." Meaning Locke will likely be called by Republicans to testify before Congress to defend the census—and his own citizenship, too.
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