The Democratic leadership in the California State Senate is calling on Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco to resign after his arrest on corruption charges.
This afternoon Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said Yee should resign before his fellow Democrats move to suspend him.
“He’s been a leader on human services, foster care and juvenile justice issues,” said Jim Beall, D-San Jose. “For me, to see this happen to someone with that record, I just can’t understand it. I can’t comprehend it at all,” Beall told the
Mercury News.
According to the paper, Yee carried more sponsored legislation between 2007 and 2008 written by special interests than any other Senator. He never won the trust of the Democratic establishment and failed to win a single endorsement in his run for Mayor of San Francisco in 2011.
Yee started in politics on the San Francisco school board, ascended to the Board of Supervisors and then moved on to the State Assembly and Senate. He was the first Chinese American ever elected to the State Senate in 2006.
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Previous run ins with the law included an arrest after suntan lotion was found in his pocket as he walked out a store in Hawaii. In 1999 he was stopped twice, but not arrested on suspicion of cruising for prostitution.
You can read more about his rise and fall in the Mercury News.