- Van Tran
Van Thai Tran (Trần Thái Văn in Vietnamese, born
October 19 1964 ) is a U.S.politician , currently serving as a Republican member of theCalifornia State Assembly , representing portions of Orange County. Tran andTexas State RepresentativeHubert Vo are the highest-rankingVietnamese American elected officials in U.S. history; Tran took office one month before Vo did, making him the first Vietnamese American to serve in a state legislature. He currently serves in the Assembly Republican leadership as Assistant Republican Leader.Early life
Born in
Saigon ,South Vietnam , Tran and his family emigrated to the United States after being evacuated by theUnited States Army one week before theFall of Saigon , when he was 10 years old. After originally settling inMichigan , they moved to Orange County when Tran was ateenager . He married Cindy Nguyen onNovember 20 ,2004 . He and Cindy welcomed their first child, Alexander Tran on June 22, 2007.Education & Political career
Tran worked as an intern and later as a staff aide for
Congressman Bob Dornan and for State SenatorEd Royce while a student at theUniversity of California, Irvine , where he earned a B.A. inPolitical Science in1990 . Tran completed anMaster of Public Administration fromHamline University and a J.D. fromHamline University School of Law .In
2000 , Tran was elected to the Garden GroveCity Council with the highest number of votes in city history and became only the secondVietnamese American man to be elected to office in the United States (Tony Lam was the first when he was elected to the city council of neighboring Westminster in1992 ). After serving one term on the council, Tran was elected to theCalifornia State Assembly with 61% of the vote in2004 , representing the 68th District.Tran is the Vice Chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. He also serves on the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee and the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee. In June 2007, he was appointed by the Assembly Speaker as chairman of the Select Committee on International Trade.
On
December 21 ,2005 , Tran announced that he would launch anexploratory committee for a2006 run against Democratic AssemblymanTom Umberg in the race for the State Senate seat being vacated byterm limit ed Democrat Joe Dunn. [http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/communities/westminster/article_907866.php] Tran opted not to join the race, allowing AssemblywomanLynn Daucher to win the Republican nomination with nominal opposition, and she went on to lose the general election by a 1% margin to SupervisorLou Correa , a former Assemblyman, who had defeated Umberg in the Democratic primary.On
November 7 2006 , Tran was re-elected to the Assembly with 62% of the vote.External links
* [http://www.assembly.ca.gov/tran Official Assembly web site]
* [http://www.vantran68.com/ Official Campaign web site]
* [http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=7d5bd74d472d5afefe18b271bc6b8dab The New Face of the Grand Old Party]
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