wfn.org | United Methodist tapped to head Department of Commerce

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 30, 2000   News media contact: Joretta Purdue ·(202)
546-8722·Washington     10-21-33-71B{313}

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - A United Methodist layman, who was detained in a
Japanese-American internment camp as a boy and later became a U.S.
congressman, has been nominated by President Clinton to be secretary of the
Department of Commerce.

Norman Y. Mineta, 68, a vice president with defense contractor Lockheed
Martin in Bethesda, Md., was tapped to succeed William Daley, who resigned
to take charge of Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Mineta will be the first
Asian American in a cabinet post, according to White House officials. 

An active member of Wesley United Methodist Church, a Japanese-American
congregation in San Jose, Calif., Mineta and his wife, Danealia, maintain a
home there and in the Washington area.
 
Prior to being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974, Mineta
had been both vice mayor and mayor of San Jose - the first Japanese American
elected mayor of a major U.S. city. 

Mineta represented the Silicon Valley area of California in Congress for 21
years. During that time, he worked on the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which
offered redress for injustices inflicted upon Japanese Americans during
World War II. As chair of the House Committee for Transportation and Public
Works, he was a major proponent in Congress of a 1991 transportation act,
the largest revision of transportation laws since the mid-1950s.

In an Oval Office announcement of the nomination, the president said of
Mineta: "He brings an in-depth understanding of American business, and a
strong sense of the needs of our high-tech economy. But he also has a deep
concern for people -- for the people in places who are not yet fully
participating in this economy." Clinton had previously named Mineta chair of
the president's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans
and Pacific Islanders.

 "Now, some might say that the months remaining in this administration is
not a lot of time to make a difference in the life of our nation," Mineta
remarked in his response to the nomination. "But I disagree. Six months is a
virtual eternity in the new economy."
  
Mineta was born in San Jose and graduated from the University of California
at Berkeley. He served in Korea and Japan as a military intelligence officer
during the 1950s.

# # #

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org