David Wu is a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Oregon, representing the state's 1st Congressional District (map). The district represents includes a small section of western Multnomah County, Oregon and all of Yamhill, Columbia, Clatsop and Washington counties. Wu was born in Taiwan, and moved to the United States with his family in 1961. He received a bachelor of science degree from Stanford University in 1977, and attended Harvard Medical School, but dropped out. Wu also received a Juris Doctor degree from Yale in 1982. Wu is the first Taiwanese-American to be elected to the US Congress. He is married to Michelle Wu, and has one son, Matthew, and a daughter, Sarah.
Prior to being elected a US Representative, Wu served as a clerk for a federal judge and co-founded a law firm, Cohen & Wu, which primarily served the high tech sector in Oregon's "Silicon Forest."
Wu was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1998, replacing fellow Democrat Elizabeth Furse, and began serving in 1999 with the 106th Congress. He is currently serving on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, as well as the House Committee on Science. Wu also serves as the Ranking Minority Member of the Science Subcommittee on Environment Technology and Standards as well as the Space Subcommittee.
In the 2004 election, Wu was challenged by Republican Goli Ameri. On October 12, 2004 after Ameri brought the issue to the forefront of her campaign, Wu admitted that he had been disciplined in 1976 for attempted sexual assault by Stanford officials while he was attending the school, though no charges were ever filed. Wu won the 2004 general election with 58f the vote, compared to Ameri's 38Àand 4or Deal Wolf, the Constitution Party candidate.
In May 2006, Wu won the Democratic primary against three low-profile challengers with 87f the vote, and, in November, will face state Rep. Derrick Kitts of Hillsboro, who was unopposed in the GOP primary.
