NikkeiWest--Northern California Japanese American Newspaper

By J.K. Yamamoto

The race for California attorney general is already in full swing, with a crowded field of seven Democrats and six Republicans seeking their respective parties’ nominations in next year’s primary.

The winner of the general election will succeed Jerry Brown, who is running for governor.

Among the Democratic hopefuls are three prominent Asian Pacific American elected officials:

• Assembly Majority Leader Alberto Torrico, whose parents are immigrants from Bolivia and whose mother is of Japanese descent. He represents the 20th Assembly District (Fremont, Newark, Union City and Milpitas, and portions of San Jose, Hayward, Castro Valley and Pleasanton).

• San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, whose mother and father immigrated from India and Jamaica, respectively.

• Assemblyman Ted Lieu, who immigrated as a child with his family from Taiwan. He represents the 53rd Assembly District (El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Torrance, Lomita, Marina Del Rey, and portions of Los Angeles).

Torrico spoke Dec. 1 at an informal reception held at Oizakaya Lounge in San Francisco Japantown. Sponsors included Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma of San Francisco and Floyd Mori, an assemblyman from Pleasanton in the 1970s, who were unable to attend. Torrico was introduced by Eric Tao of AGI Capital, his classmate from Hastings College of the Law.

Legislative Highlights

Having been elected to the Assembly three times since 2004, Torrico is termed out. He is ending his tenure as the Assembly’s second-highest-ranking Democrat.

In an interview, Torrico reflected on his tenure in the Legislature, which included an unsuccessful battle by California officials to keep Toyota from leaving New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) in Fremont. Toyota’s decision followed General Motors’ withdrawal from the 25-year-old joint venture. Thousands of auto workers and employees of related businesses will be affected.

The only good news is that the U.S. Department of Labor will “try to place people, try to help them in their transition period,” Torrico reported.

“At the state level, once the decision was made by Toyota, it seemed like there wasn’t any turning back,” he said. “We tried informal channels, formal channels, we tried to pass legislation (providing incentives for Toyota to stay). We were repeatedly told it wasn’t going to be enough, the economics didn’t make sense.

“So it’s a big loss for us in Fremont, it’s a big loss for the Bay Area and for the California economy, and I hope that we take it as a lesson in California about how competitive the world marketplace is now for manufacturing and for jobs. We have to figure it out.”

Asked about his major accomplishments as an assemblyman, Torrico responded, “It’s been a tough environment to get things done, but I think that I’ve been an advocate for some issues and some groups that don’t have advocates.

“I’ve done a lot of things having to do with foster kids, to make it easier for foster kids to have health insurance ... I’ve also been a champion for newborn babies. Some babies are abandoned and left to die. I’ve raised awareness of that issue ... The option of taking your baby to an emergency room or a fire station, rather than leaving them on a street corner or dumping them in a garbage can, has saved lives. So I’m proud of that.”

Currently, it is a crime to surrender a baby more than 72 hours after birth. Torrico’s legislation to extend the deadline has been vetoed three times by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Torrico added, “I’ve been an outspoken advocate and fighter for regular middle-class families and poor families in California. I’ve been very critical of the cuts that have been made, very critical of our approach to the budget, specifically very critical of the governor.”

“Broken” Criminal Justice System

Torrico explained his reasons for the state’s top law enforcement post by recalling an incident from his childhood. The police knocked on the door at 3 a.m. and asked his family if they had seen or heard anything. They were informed that their neighbor had been shot.

“It gives your parents great urgency to get out of that environment, and gives you great awareness of how important public safety is,” he said. “You can have the greatest schools in the world, greatest jobs, most beautiful homes, but if you don’t feel safe ... none of these things matter.”

According to Torrico, the problem is that “our criminal justice system is broken. We have a prison system that is morally bankrupt because seven out of 10 people that go to prison come back to prison within four years. That’s a 70-percent failure rate, in my opinion. It’s not only morally bankrupt, it’s fiscally bankrupt. We’re going to spend more money on prisons next year than we do on higher education for the first time in our state’s history.

“The prison system needs to be fixed. We need to give people an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves ... but it needs the attorney general to be the champion for reform, to professionalize our prisons. We’re missing that right now.”

To deal with gangs, Torrico has proposed putting a police officer on every high school campus that requests one. He also called for steps such as universal preschool “to educate our kids, to start earlier to keep the kids out of trouble.”

He also stressed the need to deal with white-collar crime. “Mortgage companies, banks, other corporations that are ripping off consumers every day — they need to be brought to justice, they need to be brought to account. Some of them need to do jail time.”

Diverse Field, Diverse State

Torrico has been campaigning up and down the state. “I don’t spend all of my time only in the Bay Area or only in Los Angeles like most candidates do,” he said. “I travel all over ... Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley, Sacramento area, northern parts of the state. I’ve probably been to 30 counties out of 58 already.”

Regarding the ethnic mix among the candidates, he commented, “It’s certainly significant that (one of them is) someone like me, with a Latino father and Japanese mother. My parents didn’t have a college education. They were janitors when I was growing up. They sent me and my three younger brothers to college, and somebody like me gets to run for attorney general.

“It’s very significant for what opportunities this state provides. And the diverse field is reflective of the growing diversity of California for sure, so I think that being half Latino and half Asian is a big deal for a lot of voters in this state.”

Torrico is the only person to become a member of both the Assembly Latino Caucus and the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. He speaks Spanish, but not Japanese.

Other Democrats in the running are Joe Canciamilla, former assemblyman from District 11 (Contra Costa County); Rocky Delgadillo, former Los Angeles city attorney; Assemblyman Pedro Nava of District 35 (Santa Barbara); and Chris Kelly, former chief privacy officer for Facebook.