Peninsula Daily News news sources
WASHINGTON — Former Gov. Gary Locke is President Barack Obama’s likely third pick for commerce secretary, a senior administration official said Monday.
Locke, a Democrat, was the nation’s first Chinese-American governor when he served two terms in the governor’s mansion from 1997 to 2005.
The Commerce post is typically not one of the more high-profile jobs in any administration.
The head of the department oversees agencies responsible for the once-a-decade census.
The department also oversees oceans policy and many aspects of international trade, among other things.
It oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is looking to move its Northwest operating base from Seattle’s Lake Union in 2012.
The Port of Port Angeles is actively campaigning for NOAA to locate on port property at its Terminal 3 in Port Angeles.
The ports of Seattle, Bellingham and Newport, Ore., are also making offers.
Marine sanctuary
Another Commerce Department entity on the North Olympic Peninsula is the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, which extends out into the Pacific Ocean from Cape Flattery to Copalis in Grays Harbor County.
The sanctuary maintains a museum and administrative offices in Port Angeles.
Locke, 59, was born into an immigrant family and lived in a Seattle public housing project until he was 6.
He graduated from Yale University, which he attended with a combination of scholarships and financial aid, and Boston University Law School.
Locke was briefly linked to the scandal over foreign contributions to President Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign.
In July 1998, he gave a deposition to the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight about his relationships with questioned Clinton donors.
But the committee subsequently said the deposition produced no evidence that Locke knowingly accepted illegal campaign donations.
Checks returned
Locke denied any wrongdoing, and he subsequently returned some checks tied to people implicated in the fundraising scandal, including $750 from John Huang.
The former Commerce Department official was the Democratic Party’s chief fund raiser for the Asian-American population in the 1996 elections, and he became one of the central figures in the national Democratic Party fundraising scandal.
Also, in December 1997, Locke’s political committee was fined a maximum $2,500 by state regulators after it admitted breaking campaign finance laws during two out-of-state fundraisers in 1996.
In March 1998, state investigators cleared Locke of wrongdoing following complaints that he unlawfully took $10,000 in campaign contributions from members of a Buddhist church.
Locke lists among his accomplishments as governor a package of tax breaks that persuaded the Boeing Co. to assemble its new 787 jetliner in Everett and expanded transportation and construction budgets.
Halted graving yard
Also as governor, Locke was the state executive who officially halted construction in Port Angeles of a huge onshore dry dock that was to be used for manufacture of Hood Canal Bridge pontoons and anchors.
His action in December 2004 came in response to an “enough is enough” request from the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, whose ancestral village of Tse-whit-zen — including more than 300 burials — were unearthed during early graving yard construction.
The project was halted at a cost of more than $87 million.
Since leaving office, Locke has been working for the Seattle-based law firm Davis Wright Tremaine on issues involving China, energy and governmental relations.
Chinese human rights
He argues that global engagement is a way to improve China’s human rights record and deal with piracy of intellectual property.
Locke is married to Mona Lee Locke, a former television news reporter who is now executive director of the regional affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a breast cancer research and advocacy organization. They have three children.
Obama’s expected choice of Locke arose less than two weeks after his most recent pick, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, backed out.
Just over a week after Obama named him and he accepted, Gregg cited “irresolvable conflicts” with the policies of the Democratic president.
Obama originally gave the post, which requires Senate confirmation, to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Richardson, a Democrat, withdrew in January, before Obama took office, after the disclosure that a grand jury is investigating allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts in his state.
