#215 C100 Visit; Senate Hearing on NIH Director; AAPI Voters Targeted; Andy Kim; AAUC Hub

In This Issue #215

• C100 Delegation Visits Washington DC

• Senate Hearing on NIH Director Nomination

• Asian Americans Say AAPI Voters are Targeted by New Laws Criminalizing Election Assistance

• Rep. Andy Kim Runs for New Jersey Senate Seat

• More on AAUC Asian American Pacific Islander Hub

• News and Activities for the Communities

C100 Delegation Visits Washington DC

A Committee of 100 (C100) delegation visited Washington DC on September 28-29, 2023.  Highlights of the trip included meetings with

·       Rep. Rick Larsen, Co-Chair, U.S.-China Working Group

·       Daniel Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of State

·       Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative

·       Erika Moritsugu, Deputy Assistant to the President and AANHPI Senior Liaison; Sarah Beran, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs, National Security Council; and Jenny Yang, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice & Equity at the White House

·       Stapleton Roy, Former U.S. Ambassador to China and Robert Daly, Director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States

·       Jill Murphy, Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)

·       Senior Staff to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

On September 28, C100 hosted a reception celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival with the co-hosts the US-Asia Institute and partners the Council on Korean Americans and the US-China Business Council on September 28, 2023.  Joining the delegation in the reception were Congressman Rick Larsen, Congressional staffers, diplomats, and leaders in AAPI communities.

C100 also co-hosted with the National Museum of Asian Art a private viewing of the exhibit: Anyang: China’s Ancient City of Kings on September 29, 2023.Read about the C100 visit and view a photo album at: https://bit.ly/3LYkTtk

Senate Hearing on NIH Director Nomination

On Wednesday, October 18, 2023, The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on the nomination of Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to be the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The hearing starts at 10 am ET in 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 50 Constitution Ave NE, Washington, DC.  There will be no video broadcast for this event.Dr. Bertagnolli began work as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on October 3, 2022.  https://bit.ly/4039K0c

According to a Science report titled "Pall of Suspicion" on March 23, 2023, NIH’s “China initiative” led by Dr. Michael Lauer has upended hundreds of lives and destroyed scores of academic careers.  NIH sent emails in 2018 asking some 100 institutions to investigate allegations that one or more of their faculty had violated NIH policies designed to ensure federal funds were being spent properly. Most commonly, NIH claimed a researcher was using part of a grant to do work in China through an undisclosed affiliation with a Chinese institution.  Four years later, 103 of those scientists—some 42% of the 246 targeted in the letters, most of them tenured faculty members—had lost their jobs.In contrast to the very public criminal prosecutions of academic scientists under the now-defunct "China Initiative" launched in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump to thwart Chinese espionage, NIH’s version has been conducted behind closed doors.NIH’s data also make clear who has been most affected. Some 81% of the scientists cited in the NIH letters identify as Asian, and 91% of the collaborations under scrutiny were with colleagues in China.NIH is by far the largest funder of academic biomedical research in the United States, and some medical centers receive hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the agency. So when senior administrators heard Lauer say a targeted scientist “was not welcome in the NIH ecosystem,” they understood immediately what he meant—and that he was expecting action.Read the Science report: https://bit.ly/3ZbJL4B

Asian Americans Say AAPI Voters are Targeted by New Laws Criminalizing Election Assistance  

According to the Milwaukee Independent on October 13, 2023, for a century, the League of Women Voters in Florida formed bonds with marginalized residents by helping them register to vote and, in recent years, those efforts have extended to the growing Asian American and Asian immigrant communities.But a state law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in May would have forced the group to alter its strategy. The legislation would have imposed a $50,000 fine on third-party voter registration organizations if the staff or volunteers who handle or collect the forms have been convicted of a felony or are not U.S. citizens.

A federal judge blocked the provision this week. But its passage reflects the effort by DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, and other GOP leaders to crack down on access to the ballot. Florida is one of at least six states, including Georgia and Texas, where Republicans have enacted voting rules since 2021 that created or boosted criminal penalties and fines for individuals and groups that assist voters. Several of those laws are also facing legal challenges.In the meantime, voting rights advocates are being forced to quickly adapt to the changing environment. Before the ruling in Florida, for instance, the League of Women Voters started using online links and QR codes for outreach. It removed the personal connection between its workers and communities and replaced it with digital tools that are likely to become a technological barrier.In states where penalties are getting tougher, the developments have sowed fear and confusion among groups that provide translators, voter registration help, and assistance with mail-in balloting — roles that voting rights advocates say are vital for Asian communities in particular.

In a number of states, language barriers already hamper access to the ballot for a population that has been growing rapidly. Asian, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander populations grew 35% between 2010 and 2020, according to Census data. The new laws in mostly Republican-led states are seen by many voting groups as another form of voter suppression.  “It’s specifically targeting limited English proficiency voters, and that includes AAPI voters,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Atlanta.In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in June that raises the penalty for illegal voting to a felony, upping it from a misdemeanor charge that was part of a sweeping elections law passed two years earlier.  Alice Yi, who is Chinese American, used to help translate in Austin, Texas, but said the new law isn’t clear about whether good faith mistakes will be criminalized and worries that she could get into trouble by offering assistance.But voting rights supporters like Ashley Cheng — also in Austin — remain committed to reaching Asian voters, despite the threat of jail time.  Cheng, the founding president of Asian Texans for Justice, recalls discovering her mother was not listed in the voter rolls when she tried to help her vote in 2018. They never found out why she wasn’t properly registered. Advocates say this highlights flaws in the system and illustrates how volunteers are essential to overcoming them.

James Woo, the communications director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said he won’t even get his parents a drink of water while helping them with their ballots.  “It’s simple things like that, which would have been like a conversation starter or just like helping them throughout the process, might be viewed as like something illegal I’m doing,” he said.Read the Milwaukee Independent report: https://bit.ly/3QfI44U

Rep. Andy Kim Runs for New Jersey Senate Seat

Rep. Andy Kim has announced his candidacy to become New Jersey’s next Senator.  He would challenge incumbent Bob Menendez in the Democratic Senate primary next year.  His entrance into the race came one day after federal prosecutors unsealed a staggering indictment against Menendez.

Rep. Kim spoke at the APA Justice September 2021 monthly meeting. Prior to serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Kim worked as a career public servant. He served at USAID, the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House National Security Council, and in Afghanistan as an advisor to Generals Petraeus and Allen. Congressman Kim is a member of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC).Read Rep. Kim's remarks at the APA Justice September 2021 monthly meeting: https://bit.ly/3kg687M.  Watch his remarks in video: https://bit.ly/3ki3jmI (48:00 starting at 15:07).

More on AAUC Asian American Pacific Islander Hub

On October 13, 2023, Dr. S.K. Lo, Founder and President of Asian American Unity Coalition (AAUC), provided additional information about its Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hub.  The first phase (beta version) of the AAPI Hub was launched at the AAUC National Unity Summit in September. The goal of the Hub is to connect different AAPI communities with shared information to empower each other through collaboration.The AAPI Hub now contains shared information that includes census data from previous work done by the ESRI nonprofit program team as the first prototype in 2020. The census data includes voting powerbase down to each congressional district showing different AAPI community representations. It can also be shown down to precinct level as the map is expanded.  Different maps show racial representation of each state, county and district. However, these maps have not been updated.The work done in 2022-2023 mainly focused on developing a comprehensive database for the AAPI communities. It was decided that the AAPI communities would be best described by the nonprofit organizations that many belong and that public information are available. Currently the AAPI Hub displays nearly 15,000 AAPI nonprofit organizations in all 50 states with administrative records data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The beta version of the AAPI Hub has these known limitations:

1.     Incomplete data on all AAPI nonprofits which do not contain any of our search words that are commonly used to describe AAPI. To overcome this, AAUC relies on prior knowledge or crowd sourcing.

2.     IRS data is updated monthly which needs to be updated correspondingly in the AAPI Hub. AAUC needs to develop a way to compare the filtered data with the new updated information using machine logic then manual determination.

3.     Not all organizations have websites or Facebook pages or mission statements listed in their 990-return form. Often, AAUC can find the website through online search manually.

The AAUC write-up also outlines the future directions of the AAPI Hub.Visit the AAUC AAPI Hub website: https://bit.ly/3FbmpEu.  Read the AAUC write-up here: https://bit.ly/48SOGNI.  Contact Dr. Lo at: sklo@asamunitycoalition.org 

News and Activities for the Communities

1. Community Calendar 

The APA Justice Community Calendar is located on the front page of the APA Justice website at https://www.apajustice.org/.

Upcoming Events:

• 2023/10/15 State Legislature 101 Training

• 2023/10/15 Rep. Gene Wu's Weekly Town Hall Meeting

• 2023/10/18 Senate Nomination Hearing of NIH Director

• 2023/10/22 Rep. Gene Wu's Weekly Town Hall Meeting 

• 2023/10/25-26 President's Advisory Commission Meeting

• 2023/10/29 Rep. Gene Wu's Weekly Town Hall Meeting

• Visit https://bit.ly/45KGyga for event details.

2.  2023/11/16: C100 Forum Debate

WHAT: Hybrid in-person and virtual event: "Has the Chinese Economy Slowed Down Permanently, Temporarily, or It Depends?"

WHEN: Thursday, November 16, from 5:00pm - 6:15pm Eastern Time

WHERE: J Conference Bryant Park, 109 W 39th St, New York, NY 10018

HOST: The Committee of 100

MODERATOR: Peter Young, CEO and President, Young & Partners, C100 member

SPEAKERS:

· Stephen Roach, Professor, Yale University

· Dan H. Rosen, Partner and Co-Founder, Rhodium Group

· Shang-Jin Wei, Professor, Columbia University

DESCRIPTION: Will the world’s second-largest economy and a critical part of global trade and manufacturing rebound with a strong manufacturing cost position, large investments in technology and the advanced education of millions of students, a potential surge in consumer spending, and continued investments in infrastructure by the government? Or, will high levels of debt, an overbuilt real estate sector, increasing government controls of the economy and technology, a shrinking population, and growing dissatisfaction on the part of those in the 18 to 30 year age bracket stifle growth on a long-term basis?  

REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/3M0XcRd