Lee was born in Tainan County in 1959. He earned a bachelor's degree in public administration from National Chengchi University and then earned a master's degree in public administration from the university.
Political career
Lee represented Tainan County as a member of the Legislative Yuan from 1996 to 2012.[1] Affiliated with the Democratic Progressive Party's Welfare State Alliance,[2] he has also served as the DPP caucus whip. In 2009, Lee was named the Democratic Progressive Party candidate for the Tainan County magistracy.[3][4] The election was cancelled, as both Tainan City and Tainan County were consolidated into the special municipality of Tainan the next year.[1] Subsequently, Lee declared his candidacy for the mayoralty of Tainan, and he was challenged by Yeh Yi-jin, Su Huan-chih, and Hsu Tain-tsair.[5][6] A fifth Democratic Progressive Party candidate, William Lai, later received official party support and won the office. Lee lost to Wang Ting-yu in a contentious 2011 party primary and eventually yielded his legislative seat to Wang's replacement candidate Mark Chen.[7][8]Su Tseng-chang named Lee one of three deputy secretaries-general of the Democratic Progressive Party in 2012.[9] Lee resigned from the position in 2017 to prepare his second campaign for the Tainan mayoralty.[1] He was one of six candidates vying for the DPP mayoral nomination won by Huang Wei-cher.[10]
Controversy
Lee was accused of accepting bribes in 2007, charges that originally stemmed from 1998.[11] In 2010, the Taiwan High Court sentenced Lee to seven years and six months imprisonment.[12] Two years later, he was cleared of corruption.[13]
