Eu Concedes She Cannot Meet U.S. Campaign Disclosure Law

March Fong Eu, her dream of being a U.S. senator turning into an ordeal, conceded Friday that she cannot comply with disclosure requirements of federal campaign law because her husband refuses to divulge the secrets of his wealth.

This may ultimately exclude her from the Senate, she said, or, then again, it may not.

“I haven’t broken the law, I just can’t meet it. So maybe I should be disqualified, and that will be up to whoever does the disqualifying,” the California secretary of state said in an interview with Southland reporters.

She seethed and railed against news reports of potential shortcomings in her foundering candidacy, saying that the press has become “an extra opponent” in the race.

“Leadership--you claim I don’t have it . . . I’m described as having no chance because I cannot raise the money. I’m described as being unqualified; I’m described as being not knowledgeable.

“I sometimes wonder to myself, and I’m being very candid with you, whether I want to put up with all that,” she said, spiking her remarks with icy four-letter invectives.

“I feel I’m not just campaigning for office; I’m campaigning against what the media says about me.”

On Monday, Eu announced that she was putting her Senate candidacy “on hold” while she concentrated on a ballot initiative that would raise liquor taxes to provide extra money for police departments. She indicated she might resurrect her Senate candidacy in December once the ballot proposition was qualified for the statewide election in June.

Among her problems in mounting a credible Senate campaign has been the wealth of her husband of 14 years, Henry Eu. He is part of an economically powerful Chinese family with interests in Asian mining, real estate and herbal medicines, among other things. Henry Eu is not a citizen of the United States and carries a Singapore passport.

He is so secretive that he refuses to tell his wife about his money or even what he does to earn it, she says.

The federal campaign rules administered by the Senate Ethics Committee require candidates to disclose financial interests of themselves and their spouses, unless there is no shared financial benefit. In her filing earlier this year, Eu, who serves currently as California’s top elections official, said she has no financial stake in her husband’s enterprises and is powerless to make him divulge anything.

But she acknowledged Friday that her husband provides the home they occupy in a high-priced walled compound in Hancock Park, something she did not include in her report to Washington. She said she was unaware of the financial arrangements for the dwelling, except that the lease was paid by an unnamed corporation connected to her husband.

She also disclosed that she recently traveled to Hong Kong, where Henry Eu spends much of his time, to ask him to tell her more about his wealth in hopes of quieting press inquiries in California.

Plea to Husband

“I said look, they’re giving me a lot of trouble because of this and I showed it what you all had written and I said, you know if they keep this up it is going to be tough on my campaign. But he still refused to divulge any information. He said respectfully he doesn’t want to divulge that information to me, but he wants to assure me that there is no conflict of interest with anything he does related to anything I do in my political office.”

Eu added, “What more can I do?”

In Sacramento, Eu’s chief deputy, Anthony Miller, said the campaign was preparing to ask the Ethics Committee about a candidate’s legal obligation in such a circumstance. “She cannot disclose that what she does not know,” said Miller. “. . . This ain’t an Ozzie and Harriet relationship, obviously.”