CBS News - (AP) Voters in Louisiana ousted indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson [D] on Saturday, instead electing a Republican attorney who will be the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. Unofficial results showed Anh "Joseph" Cao denying Jefferson a 10th term. Republicans made an aggressive push to take the seat from the 61-year-old incumbent, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of bribery, laundering money and misusing his congressional office. Cao, 41, won a predominantly black and heavily Democratic district that covers most of New Orleans. Read more at CBS News...
Note: The election was one of two [both Republican victories] in Louisiana postponed because of Hurricane Gustav.
Republican ‘Firsts’ in Civil Rights Achievements:
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• First Equal Rights to Access enacted by Republicans
• First Women’s Rights fought for by Republicans including suffragists' Ida Wells and Mary Terrell (founders of the NAACP)
• First Woman U.S. Representative, Jeanette Rankin, Republican (1919)
• First Woman Mayor, the Hon. Bertha Landes, Republican (Seattle, WA)
• First Black U.S. Representative, Joseph Rainey, Republican (South Carolina)
• First Black U.S. Senator, Hiram Revels, Republican (Mississippi)
• First Black Governor, Pinckney Pinchback, Republican (Louisiana)
• First Hispanic Governor, Romauldo Pacheco, Republican (California)
• First Hispanic U.S. Senator, Octaviano Larrazolo, Republican (New Mexico)
• First Jewish U.S. Senator, outside the former Confederacy, Joseph Simon, Republican (Oregon)
• First Jewish Woman U.S. Representative, Florence Kahn, Republican (California)
• First Asian-American U.S. Senator, Hiram Fong, Republican (Hawaii)
• First African-American Senator after Reconstruction, Ed Brooke, Republican (Massachusetts)
• First Asian-American Federal Judge, Herbert Choy, Republican
• First Woman on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor, Republican
• First Hispanic Cabinet Member, Lauro Cavazos, Secretary of Education under President Reagan, Republican
• First African-American to hold a leadership position in the U.S. House, J.C. Watts, Republican
• First Women Elected to Majority Leadership in both the House and the Senate, Jennifer Dunn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republicans
• First Vietnamese-American Elected to U.S. House, Anh “Joseph” Cao, Republican (Louisiana 2008)
Source: Republicans Celebrate 152 Years of Advancing Civil Rights by Michael Zak, 2006 (updated for inclusion of 2008 entry)
Addition to list above:
ReplyDeleteFirst Indian American elected to state-wide office in U.S. history, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, Republican (Louisiana)