Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was elected chairman of the board Tuesday.
Do, who was first elected in 2014 to succeed Janet Nguyen when she was elected to the state Senate, was elected to a full four-year term in November 2016. He represents the First District, which includes Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Westminster, along with parts of Fountain Valley and Midway City.
Do succeeds Supervisor Michelle Steel. He praised her “leadership” before holding up a copy of the 1972 edition of the Sears catalogue to discuss his family’s emigration from war-torn Vietnam that year.
“I grew up in Vietnam and before I knew what America was about, I grew up with images of it from the Sears Roebuck catalogue,” Do said.
Living in America was “a privilege you can only dream about, and little did I know I would be able to live out that dream, but in the process I learned how fragile government is and how people can be victims of bad government and what we take for granted in prosperity,” he said.
Do said when government works right, it is a “thankless job,” but added, “That’s OK because we know we made a difference.”
Termed-out Supervisor Shawn Nelson was tabbed as the board’s vice chairman for 2018.
Nelson is running for a Orange County Superior Court judgeship, but insiders say he is now mulling a run to succeed Rep. Ed Royce, R-Brea, who announced on Monday that he is retiring. Steel may also run for that job. Her husband, Shawn Steel, is the state’s National Republican Committeeman.
–City News Service