She’s a source of derision and newspaper editorial boards (Chronicle, Mercury News, etc.) demand her resignation, but Assemblywoman and convicted shoplifter Mary Hayashi, who happens to be the first Korean-American woman elected to the Legislature, at least has Asian Week’s Samson Wong in her corner.
Wong writes that the termed-out Assemblywoman who’s trying to get elected to the seat vacated by Nadia Lockyer as an Alameda County supervisor is “demonstrating she is no pariah.” His evidence? Her recent junket to Washington with other state lawmakers making the rounds of federal bureaucrats.
And he portrays Hayashi’s no contest plea that resulted in her Neiman Marcus thefts being reduced to a misdemeanor, thus preventing her from being barred from public office, this way:
Hayashi pled no contest to the shoplifting and came clean about it in the press. Didn’t cover it up like President Richard Nixon who resigned over Watergate…
Never mind that she dodged the press for months before finally giving her lone interview about the shoplifting. Alas, Wong doesn’t stop there. You can read the whole thing here.
