Well-compensated Congressional staffer Young Kim, center, with husband Charles Kim (at left) and her boss, Photoshopped-in Rep. Ed Royce: will she advise him to end the government shutdown (which doesn’t freeze her own paycheck)? [Note: the only photo I found online with Royce looking at this angle didn’t include much more of his body than this. That’s why.]
Royce is the Chair of the prestigious House Foreign Affairs Committee, so he is in a better position than almost anyone in Congress to know how much the Congressional Republican hostage-taking will hurt us on the international stage. As one of the 20-odd Republican Chairs, he has the stature to lead a revolt of the supposedly sane members of the party — stature that his European and Eurasian Affairs Subcommittee Chair Dana Rohrabacher and Oversight and Governmental Oversight Chair Darrell Issa lack — to make a break with party leadership for the good of the country and survive politically. By signing a “discharge petition” to bring a clean “continuing resolution” to the floor without the acquiescence of weepy and fragile House Speaker John Boehner, Ed Royce could be the guy to bail the nation’s chestnuts out of the fire — if he wanted to.
So far, he won’t do it.
He’s got to know that his lunatic party leadership is steering us directly into a train wreck. If he doesn’t get it, then his prime advisor, snarly Chief of Staff Amy Porter, should be fired. (She won’t be fired, of course; I just enjoy typing that.) He has got to know the downside of dealing with hostage-takers (which is what that party leadership has now become: “pay the ransom or we’ll kill your economy.”) Still, he won’t act — sitting on his duff like he’s a bystander rather than one of the members of Congress with the most access to power, if he has the guts to use it.
You, Dear Reader — yes, you! — should be contacting Ed Royce’s office right now to urge him to sign a discharge petition right now. He’s in town; citizens should be serenading his district office on Brea’s Birch Street Promenade day and night, urging him to crawl onto his feet and stop the madness. He’s our point of leverage; our county Republican Congressional delegation’s supposedly sane and sober counterpart to the insane and insufficiently sober Rohrabacher. We should be using the crowbar of public opinion with great force to dislodge him from his position — and thus save the nation.
What’s that? You say that you don’t have his contact information? Wait — OJB is here to help!
- WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
- 2185 Rayburn House Office Building
- Washington, DC 20515
- T (202) 225-4111
- F (202) 226-0335
- DISTRICT OFFICE
- 210 W Birch Street , Suite 201
- Brea, CA 92821
- T (714) 255-0101 | (909) 420-0010
- F (714) 255-0109
- LOS ANGELES COUNTY OFFICE
- 1380 S. Fullerton Road #205
- Rowland Heights, CA 91748
- T (626) 964-5123
- F (626) 810-3891
But do you know who has even more influence over him than most of our readership combined? His third-highest-paid staffer, after the Chief of Staff and her Deputy, 65th Assembly District candidate Young Kim. She’s his “Director of Asian Community Relations” — presumably one of those who in her spare time vetted last year’s “Yellow Peril” attack mailers against Royce’s formidable Taiwanese-American opponent, Hacienda-La Puente School Board President Jay Chen. Correct me if I’m wrong, Amy Porter, but I think that Kim is supposed to be listening to word on the streets in the Asian community about issues including the prospect of default on our Full Faith and Credit: which, judging from what I see in the foreign press, has our Asian bondholders highly agitated.
Royce is heavily invested politically in Kim’s campaign against incumbent Sharon Quirk-Silva and, if I don’t miss my mark, former incumbent Chris Norby.
Norby, of course, is a libertarian political nihilist — I mean that in as kind a way as I can muster — who would probably welcome both a shutdown and a default disaster as a means of reigning in the excesses of government. (To him, those excesses include most examples of what most of us call “governing.”) He has his convictions and they aren’t going to change. But Royce, who exists in a sort of superimposed quantum state has allowed him to be both a party elder statesman and a member of the Tea Party Caucus — is not so heavily invested in the “political convictions” department. He should be movable. If he did move and lead the “adult” caucus pushing for a discharge petition, though, the “tarnish” of his “giving up the hostages” for nothing would likely spread to his protege Young Kim.
Royce apparently believes that he himself is invulnerable from challenge by either a Republican or a Democrat, and thus he doesn’t have to worry. However, if Royce helped “release the hostages” to save the country, he would deeply upset the hostage-takers. Her undeniably close association with her political patron Royce would tend to hurt Kim in next June’s primary against Norby (or someone like him), as both attempted to scoop up the portion of the vote that Sharon Quirk-Silva, essentially assured of a spot in the 2014 general election, doesn’t already have in the bag.
So when you read government shutdown stories and national default stories, take a moment to revel at the great role that Orange County plays in this crisis.
- Orange County hosts one of the few House Republicans with the stature to lead a “revolt of the adults” and solve these crises of governance — given his ability to bolster his position with an argument that Republicans would find difficult to ignore: that both crises generate substantial international weakness in foreign affairs, leading among other things to a higher probability of terrorist attacks on the U.S. and its assets.
- Royce won’t do so not due to fear over his own electoral fate — but perhaps due to fear over the electoral fate of Young Kim, his protege in the potentially legislative-control-deciding AD-65.
As “tail wagging the dog” stories go, that is pretty impressive!
So what should Young Kim do? Her patriotic duty, of course! She should call publicly for her boss to sign the appropriate discharge petititons — and she should privately twist his arm to do so as well.
She’s supposed to an adult too, right? (Right? I’m really asking.) If so, here’s her chance to act like one. Next time any of you see her, please ask her for her position on the government shutdown and on government default.
If she tells you that that’s not a matter she’d face in the California legislature, remind her that she’d sure as hell have to deal with it’s recession-generating economic consequences. And remind her of who she works for — and that she needs not to be the tail wagging that dog.
That’s her HUSBAND? i see why her name is young.
Ahem. I’m trying to be good about avoiding puns on her name. I couldn’t help referring to her as “Li’l Kim” once or twice, but I’m trying to be good. After all, no one makes fun of Sharon’s name, right? (Eye-roll.)
Yes, so far as I can tell, that is her husband, Charles Kim of La Habra — who had been supposed to run for City Council last year but didn’t. His apparent age matches his age as reported by those who’ve seen him (late 60s or 70s). It’s very hard to find photos of Charles Kim online, though. Part of the problem may be that a plastic surgeon of that name from Beverly Hills has a strong web presence (and seemingly includes the words “Orange County” as SEO tags) and the image search is filled with surgically altered Asian eyes, Asian noses, augmented breasts, etc. I guess we’ll have to wait to see him in her campaign literature.
If Amy Porter swears to me that that isn’t him, I’ll make a correction — but then why would OC political have published the photo?
Plastic surgeon? I wouldn’t imagine the two Charles Kims have encountered each other. This one here is an august monument of age-spots.
Ed Royce is a Republican. He is not signing any discharge petitions. Do not waste your time on phone calls. Also, stop blaming a sidekick for the actions (or non-actions) of the congressman. Nobody is holding a gun to his head to listen to her even if she was advising him to do something.
Yes, he won by more than a 2:1 margin, by 36 percentage points. Stop trying to make him look like he is just being held hostage by the “extreme elements”
He is one of those “extreme elements”
You blog your way; I’ll blog mine. I don’t care what else of your post people buy or don’t buy, but I certainly hope that they’ll reject your advise not to call his office. I hope that everyone in the district, and some beyond, calls him and lets him feel the heat. Without that, we will not have done our part to avert catastrophe.
Our part was done when we elected him, or voted for one of the others. Our part next comes in November 2014.
Please do not confuse my disagreement with your call as unsolicited opinion on how you should blog. I have, carefully, and deliberately avoided dispensing such. For pretty much the same reason you start with.
I do not see any relevance to Mr. Diamond’s article. It provides no insights and his assertion that a staffer has control over the congressman’s decisions is ludicrous. The ramifications of the government not dealing with our real and ever growing budgetary problems are serious now and only going to get much worse if nothing is done today to address them. I suggest that Mr. Diamond’s future articles seriously deal with these issues.
Thanks for your comments, Barry. My argument is that the Congressperson doesn’t think that he has to worry about his own race and is highly invested, politically and presumably emotionally, in the race of his long-time staffer, whom he specifically asked to move into this district rather than following her initial plan to run in AD-55.
You may still not find the article the least compelling, but at least now we should be able to start our analysis from the same foundation.
greg,
ed is supposed to be coming by the house on saturday and we are taking the boat over to catalina….i will put in a good word for you
Thank you for your efforts in vain, willie. Print out a copy for him of the Young Kim story I just posted!
I’ve been having trouble with this piece too. I mean, the title is deceptive; who really expects that Young Kim is advising Ed Royce one way or another, on national issues? Especially now that we’ve seen her in action, in Greg’s more recent post.
I suppose the value of this was to encourage Royce’s constituents to have him end this madness. But the Young Kim connection was pretty strained.
Then Barry chimed in with what sounded like a defense of what the Congressional Republicans are doing in Washington, holding our economy hostage hoping to get their way on some unrelated health care policy. If I’m understanding Barry that he is supportive of that, I’m surprised, after our talk at Salt & Pepper before the election about what a reasonable guy he is, and how he wouldn’t make any budget decisions on Fullerton council that would risk bankruptcy?
All very confusing…
Vern:
When someone is running for office, “they” are also “their campaign.” Whether you know it or not, Royce is heavily invested in Young Kim’s election. He’s not worried about his own fate in this election, but about hers. And her political persona is tied to him.
So the question is: for Young Kim’s campaign, is it better for Royce to be a sober elder statesman or a madman. Probably, to win a de facto GOP primary, it’s better if he’s a madman — hence “her campaign” would be hoping that he doesn’t act like a statesman, because “crazy = good”.
So if she has any contrary opinion on the shutdown, etc., it would be a very good idea for her to speak publicly and distance herself from his madman policies — for example by calling for a clean continuing resolution. I’ll bet that Sharon would call for one, even though it’s a federal issue, if asked.
This is beyond low. A manufactured image with Royce poorly photoshopped in, and a man you swear is her husband when it is definitely not.
Sure it may be a joke, but you reinforce the lie in your comments as if the joke is real. You are not attacking issues here you’re attacking people and you say some borderline racist comments at that.
Shame on you.
You know, not a whole lot written here by anonymous posters truly pisses me off, but: “Royce poorly photoshopped in”? How dare you! He’s well-Photoshopped in!
(Seriously, what did you think is poor about it? Maybe I can fix it.)
I don’t “swear” that that is her husband; I provisionally believe that that is her husband. He matches her husband’s description. Why do you think it definitely isn’t him? Have you met Charles Kim?
Fine, you want me to talk issues. OK, if you can get me Young Kim’s position on the government shutdown and embracing default, I’ll write a story about it. Can you get me that? I’d ask, but I don’t think that I’d get a reply.