Jay Chen Launches Website on Rival Royce's Record

Jay Chen, a Democratic candidate for the 39th Congressional District, held a press conference Thursday to announce the launch of a website targeting his Republican opponent U.S. Rep. Ed Royce.

The site, www.meetedroyce.com, is in response to Royce’s refusal to debate him in public and a way to counter a slew of attack ads the longtime congressman has leveled against the upstart challenger, Chen said. Royce’s refusal to participate in any type of political forum to answer questions on his voting record is “very insulting to constituents,” Chen said.

“If Ed Royce will not debate the issues, or have a forum, or put himself out there, it’s my responsibility as a candidate to make sure that voters are educated,” he said.

Flanked by Walnut City Councilman Eric Ching, retired Xerox executive Charlie Sie, and Chuching Wang with the LA 8020 Political Action Committee, Chen also discussed bilingual campaign literature Royce mailed to Chinese-speaking voters.  In the literature, Royce states that his “support for English as the official language does not mean English-Only” and that federal government services will “always remain available in other major languages such as Chinese.”

Chen said Royce’s mailer contradicts the congressman’s support of English-only bills during his career, including his co-sponsorship of a 2011 House resolution that would end President Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 13166 “Improving Access to Services for Person with Limited English Proficiency. The federal resolution would mean voting, Social Security, Medicare, and other services would be English-only, Chen said.

The Hacienda-La Puente school board member also pointed to Royce’s vote in 2006 against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, adding that the congressman specifically opposed the part of the law that called for multilingual ballots to be available in areas with a significant number of English learners.  The 39th District is 30 percent Asian and 30 percent Latino, so would fall under such a requirement, he said.

“It is incredibly hypocritical that Ed Royce has cosponsored so many laws to make voting English-only, yet he uses bilingual campaign literature to try to mislead Chinese-speakers to win their votes.  No wonder the public is so cynical about career politicians like Ed Royce and Congress has an all-time low approval rating,” said Chen.

Dave Gilliard, a spokesman for the Royce campaign, said the fact that most of the respected Chinese-American elected officials in the district support the congressman and not Chen says a great deal.

“Ed Royce has worked hard to expand educational opportunities for legal immigrants and to increase opportunities for skilled workers to come to the United States,” Gilliard said.

The congressman does support English as the official language of the United States, Gilliard said.  Being able to understand and speak English is a requirement of citizenship, he added.

“Ed Royce believes state and especially local governments should maintain the option and ability to print materials in whatever languages best serve their constituents, and he encourages them to do so, but he knows that federal mandates are not needed and only add to the expense and ultimately, the government’s increasing debt,” he said.

Chen also repeated his recent criticism of a campaign mailer in which Royce accused his challenger of supporting “robbing $716 billion from Medicare” in an effort to tie him to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Healthcare Act.

Chen called the mailer “outright lies” and said that the attack ad rehashed claims about the healthcare law that have been debunked.