Biography
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David Wu (; born April 8, 1955) is a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Oregon, representing the state's 1st Congressional District, which includes a small section of western Multnomah county and all of Yamhill, Columbia, Clatsop and Washington counties. As an ethnic Chinese who immigrated from Taiwan, Wu is considered to be both the first Chinese American
and the first Taiwanese American
member of the House of Representatives.
Background
Wu was born in Hsinchu, Taiwan to mainland Chinese parents who had settled in Taiwan due to the Chinese Civil War and moved to the United States with his family in 1961.
He spent his first two years in the U.S. in Latham, New York where his family were the only Asian Americans in town.
Wu received a bachelor of science degree from Stanford University in 1977, and attended Harvard Medical School, but dropped out. Instead, Wu received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1982. He is married to Michelle Wu, and has one son, Matthew, and a daughter, Sarah.
Prior to being elected a U.S. Representative, Wu served as a clerk for a federal judge and co-founded a law firm, Cohen & Wu, which primarily served the high tech sector in Oregon's "Silicon Forest."
Congressman
Wu was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998, replacing fellow Democrat Elizabeth Furse, and began serving in 1999 with the 106th Congress. He is currently serving on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, as well as the House Committee on Science. Wu also serves as the Ranking Minority Member of the Science Subcommittee on Environment Technology and Standards as well as the Space Subcommittee.
He currently is a member of the Executive Board for the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as Chair from January 2001 to January 2004. Congressman Wu is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a group of moderate Democrats in the House.
In the 2006 election, Wu won re-election to a fifth term, defeating Republican state Representative Derrick Kitts of Hillsboro and two minor party candidates.
Controversy
On October 12, 2004, The Oregonian (a statewide newspaper) alleged in a front page article that Wu, during the summer of 1976, had attempted to force an ex-girlfriend to have sex with him. Wu had just completed his junior year at Stanford University at the time. According to the article, Wu, then 21, was questioned by Police Capt. Raoul K. Niemeyer after the incident. Niemeyer reported that Wu had scratches on his face and neck, and wore a stretched T-shirt. Wu was not arrested and the woman declined to press charges.
The story broke in the midst of a contentious race for Congress. Wu's Republican challenger, Goli Ameri, injected the story into her campaign in its waning days.
Wu won the general election with 58% of the vote. Ameri had 38% of the vote, and Dean Wolf (Constitution Party) had 4%. 2004 General Election results
References
External links
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