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Hon. Robert T. Matsui
(Congressman Matsui died on January 1, 2005. He was a representative from
the Fifth District, California)
Robert T. Matsui first campaigned in 1978 for the congressional
seat serving Sacramento, California, persuading voters that he
would bring to office “a new form of statesmanship.” Having
entered the race as an underdog candidate, then-vice mayor Matsui
was helped to victory by a team of hundreds of committed
volunteers. Now a twenty-three year veteran of the House of
Representatives, Matsui continues to fulfill his promise. He
frequently receives accolades for bringing extraordinary levels
of dedication, competence, innovation, and integrity to his
public service.
As a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means,
Representative Matsui has been intricately and substantially
involved with the Committee’s portfolio of complex public policy
issues including tax, international trade, social security,
health care, and welfare reform. He currently serves as ranking
minority member of the Social Security Subcommittee, and has
previously held posts as ranking minority member of the Oversight
Subcommittee, acting chair of the Trade Subcommittee, acting
chair of the Human Resources Subcommittee, and member of the
Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee. Matsui has played crucial
roles in developing and passing legislation that has become the
foundation for some of the Ways and Means Committee’s most
successful programs over the past two decades.
Representative Matsui is currently engaged as a Democratic leader
in the effort to save Social Security. He is one of the nation’s
most ardent advocates for a social insurance program without
which more than half of Americans over age 65 would fall below
the poverty line. Matsui has condemned proposals to carve private
accounts from the existing system, publicly exposing the fact
that all such proposals would cut benefits, raise the retirement
age, or reduce retirees’ standard of living while further
exacerbating Social Security’s financing challenges. In the 107th
Congress, Matsui is the only current Social Security Subcommittee
member who also served on the Subcommittee in 1983, the last time
the program faced major changes. He is determined to revise
Social Security incrementally to ensure its long-term solvency
without compromising its fundamental purpose: to reduce or
eliminate poverty among America’s elderly, persons with
disabilities, and surviving dependents who have lost a
wage-earning family member. Matsui believes that all of these
groups are entitled to the certainty and stability of a
guaranteed income that allows them to live with dignity.
For his long-standing commitment to free and open international
trade, Representative Matsui has also gained a reputation as an
effective, strategic leader in this crucial policy area. While
Matsui was acting chairman of the Trade Subcommittee in 1993,
President Clinton turned to him to lead one of the most heated
congressional battles of the decade: the fight to pass the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Working in concert with
Republicans and Democrats, Matsui was a driver in passing this
keystone of modern American trade policy. Matsui also spearheaded
the 1994 efforts to secure Congressional approval of the Uruguay
Round Agreements, which led to the establishment of the World
Trade Organization (WTO). In 2000, the Clinton Administration
enlisted him to fight another uphill battle, this time for
approval of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China.
Again, by working with both Republicans and Democrats, Matsui
played a key role in passing the legislation. His expert voice
has been crucial in efforts to secure Fast-Track trade
negotiating authority over the last decade, although he has
supported and opposed various proposals based on their detailed
merits and weaknesses. Throughout these trade debates, Matsui has
constantly advocated environmental protections and the provision
of fair compensation and trade adjustment to American workers
whose jobs are negatively impacted by the lowering of barriers to
trade.
Representative Matsui has also been an ardent advocate on issues
involving the well being of American children. The first two
bills he ever introduced in Congress sought to strengthen
enforcement of child support payments. His commitment to helping
families achieve independence led him in 1991 to draft
legislation that became the backbone for child welfare reform,
proposing to expand the social services available to at-risk
children and families in the child welfare, mental health, and
juvenile justice systems. In 1994, Matsui designed a bill to
reform welfare by easing the transition of recipients to work
through additional job training and education. At its core was a
goal to encourage parents to achieve financial self-sufficiency
without sacrificing the safety net for those it was most intended
to help: our nation’s disadvantaged children. In 1997, he worked
with a bipartisan team of congressional leaders to introduce a
bill to provide health care coverage to uninsured children, the
CHILD ACT. This bill became the basis of the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) a groundbreaking effort that has
made significant progress in providing low-income children with
health insurance. Matsui continues to support investment in
America’s future by ensuring the health, education, and
opportunity of new generations.
Representative Matsui has used his position on the Ways & Means
Committee, which is charged with writing the nation’s tax policy,
to advance his goal of a balanced and fair revenue code that
employs innovative incentives to achieve meaningful and
measurable policy objectives. He helped create the Research and
Development Tax Credit in 1981 to fuel innovation in the American
economy and has been a leader in ensuring its extension while
calling for Congress to make the credit permanent. A strong
proponent of federal fiscal responsibility, Matsui cosponsored
and actively worked to enact the Tax Reform Act of 1986 that
closed numerous loopholes and helped bring balance back to the
tax system. These reforms removed about 6 million working poor
persons from the federal tax rolls and stiffened the minimum tax
for corporations and individuals who paid less than their share.
In the same spirit of tax equity, Matsui was instrumental in the
1993 expansion of the Earned-Income Tax Credit for working poor
families with children. He has sought IRS reform to ensure
fairness by protecting tax compliance while respecting taxpayer
rights. Throughout his work, Matsui has earned a reputation for
innovation and attention to detail on highly specialized tax
provisions.
Despite his prominence in national policy-making, Sacramento-area
issues have retained their pre-eminence in Representative
Matsui’s priorities. No goal has been more important to Matsui
than bringing adequate flood protection to his hometown. The
profound public safety and economic implications of the flood
risk to the region make this an urgent and essential policy need.
Hit by massive floods in 1986 and 1997, Sacramento’s
existing 85-year flood protection is less than half the 200-year
level most experts agree the area needs. Matsui is committed to
seeing through federal authorization and funding of public works
projects to bring Sacramento’s flood protection to a sufficient
level. As the city has grown tremendously during Matsui’s time in
office, he has also devoted a great deal of attention to ensuring
federal participation in Sacramento’s infrastructure projects,
including his securing of funds for expansion of the city’s light
rail public transit. Among the most notable wins in recent years
was Matsui’s successful effort for a new $142 million federal
courthouse-and the 1,200 new jobs it created-to anchor downtown
redevelopment. In 2001, Matsui sought and received a $3.5 million
appropriation for an I-5 decking project that will help reconnect
the revitalized downtown core with the waterfront.
Representative Matsui’s legislative achievements have been
recognized by a broad range of local and national organizations.
In 2001, the Capitol Unity Council honored Matsui with the Joe
Serna, Jr. Unity Award. The Child Welfare League of America has
twice named him Congressional Advocate of the Year, in 1992 and
1994. Also in 1992, Matsui was recognized by the American Public
Transit Association for his success in promoting mass transit.
The Small Business Council presented him with its Congressional
Award in 1988 and the Small Business Export Association gave him
its Ronald H. Brown Export Enhancement award in 1998. The
Anti-Defamation League has honored him with its Lifetime
Achievement Award.
Representative Matsui has a reputation as one of the best
vote-counters in the House, and is a Democratic whip-at-large. He
is a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, a position he has
held since 1999, and has previously served terms as treasurer and
deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
A third-generation Japanese American, Matsui was six months old
when he and his family were taken from Sacramento
and interned by the U.S. government at the Tule Lake camp in
1942, after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1988,
Representative Matsui helped shepherd the Japanese-American
Redress Act through Congress, in which the government formally
apologized for the World War II internment program and offered
token compensation to victims. He was also instrumental in the
designation of Manzanar, a wartime relocation center 200 miles
northeast of Los Angeles,
as a national historic site and in obtaining land on the National
Mall in Washington, DC, for the memorial to Japanese American
patriotism in World War II.
Representative Matsui is a graduate of the University of
California at Berkeley and Hastings College of Law. He was
inspired to the legal field by reading the autobiography of famed
trial lawyer Clarence Darrow and to public service by President
John F. Kennedy’s speech challenging Americans to ask what they
could do for their country. He founded his own Sacramento law
practice in 1967 and was elected to the Sacramento City Council
in 1971. He won reelection in 1975 and became vice mayor of the
city in 1977. He is married to the former Doris Okada, who is
Senior Advisor and Director of Government Relations at the firm
of Collier Shannon Scott, PLLC. Until December of 1998, Mrs.
Matsui worked as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy
Director of Public Liaison for President Clinton. Representative
and Mrs. Matsui have one grown son, Brian, who received his
undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University.
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