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WASHINGTON - An immigration attorney has scored an upset election defeat in the southern state of Louisiana, and in January will become the first Vietnamese-American member of Congress, US media said Sunday.
Anh "Joseph" Cao, 41, a little known Republican immigration lawyer from New Orleans, unseated nine-term veteran lawmaker William Jefferson, a Democrat, in an election runoff Saturday, according to the New Orleans Times Picayne newspaper.
Cao garnered 50 percent of the vote against Jefferson's 47 percent.
Cao, who fled war-ravaged Saigon as a child and arrived in the United States as an eight-year-old, now will represent Jefferson's primarily African-American district, mostly Democratic district.
Jefferson, the first black to represent Louisiana in Congress since the Reconstruction period immediately after the US Civil War, has been a powerhouse in Louisiana politics for the past three decades.
A Harvard-educated attorney and former state senator, Jefferson was indicted last year after allegedly stashing 90,000 dollars in his freezer. He was accused of bribery, corruption and a string fraud charges.
The indictment, which followed a huge Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) corruption probe, lists a series of alleged schemes in Nigeria, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea; Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. The case is expected to go to trial next month.
Cao's darkhorse bid won support from Louisiana's Republican governor Bobby Jindal, who is of Indian descent.
The Times Picayune quoted Cao as hailing voters' decision to buck party and race affiliation and vote for change.
"Tonight, the people of the Second District have spoken. We want a new direction. We want accountability, and have it," he said.
"Never in my life did I think I could be a future congressman," said Cao, who is married and has two daughters.
"The American dream is well and alive," he said, flanked by his wheelchair-bound father, who spent seven years in a North Vietnamese prison camp during that country's civil war.
Cao also thanked to the local immigrant community, as well as supporters in his native land.
"I'd like to thank my Vietnamese community," he said. "And I'd like to encourage young Vietnamese in this country to work peacefully for a free and democratic Vietnam."
- AFP /ls
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