Political career
Nguyen was appointed to the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education in 2011, [5] after a close race in 2010. He was elected as a trustee in 2012,and served a term as vice president. As a board member,he fought against the exclusion of LGBT Vietnamese from the annual Little Saigon Tết Parade. [6] [7] He resigned from the board of trustees in 2014 due to becoming mayor. [8] [9]
Nguyen defeated incumbent Bruce Broadwater by 15 votes in the 2014 election to become mayor of Garden Grove. He also became the first Vietnamese-American mayor of the city. [10] As mayor,he sought to improve government transparency and accountability,and to engage voters by making city finance records available online. [11] [12] [13] Nguyen was appointed by the state governor to the Orange County Fair and Event Center Board of Directors. [1] [14] He resigned the position in 2015. [14]
The president of the Garden Grove Police Association,a political opponent of Nguyen,"surreptitiously recorded a conversation" in June 2015 with Nguyen,then newly elected mayor. [15] According to the OC Weekly ,"during the discussion,Nguyen called [Garden Grove] City Councilman Phat Bui 'a fucking dick,' a reference to efforts by Bui's supporters to label Nguyen a communist sympathizer for not vehemently protesting Riverside's sister-city relationship with Can Tho,Vietnam". Nguyen stated the insinuation was inaccurate and that he simply "didn't think one city council should tell another what to do". [15]
In the 2016 elections Nguyen ran for congress in California's 46th district,long held by Loretta Sanchez,with former California State Senate member Lou Correa as his opponent. [16] [17] In the June primary Nguyen came in second with 14.6% of the vote after Correa received 43.7%. [18] [19] In the November Nguyen lost to Correa after receiving just under 30% of the vote in the general election. [20]
Nguyen's term as Garden Grove mayor ended in December 2016,and he was succeeded by council member/Mayor Pro Tem,Steve Jones. [21] [22]
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