[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 174-175]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO CONGRESSMAN BOB T. MATSUI

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I offer a few words about the passing 
of Bob Matsui, one of California's great political leaders.
  Bob was one of those people who you always thought would be there. 
His death has come as a great shock and surprise to many.
  I extend my deep sorrow to Doris, Brian, and the rest of the Matsui 
family. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
  Throughout his career his wonderful wife Doris has been by his side. 
One of the things I remember most about the two of them is the 
wonderful smile she always had whenever they walked into a room 
together. They truly were a fine couple.
  I would also like to offer my sympathy to everyone in the Sacramento 
area--you were so well served by this wonderful man. He has done a 
fantastic job representing you in Washington for the last 26 years and 
before that on the Sacramento City Council.
  I have known Bob Matsui for a long time. I will remember him as a 
great human being, as a trusted colleague, as a fine public servant, 
and someone in whom I was very proud to place friendship, respect, and 
collegiality.
  Bob was a superb public servant. He was a thoughtful, constructive 
leader who brought people together to find solutions for public policy 
issues. He was a reasoned voice; he was a dependable voice.
  When we faced a problem related to the Folsom Dam, Bob was one of the 
most constructive figures in getting that very divided issue settled.
  Bob was also a good thinker and a strong thinker. People knew that 
when Bob Matsui said something that it was steeped in practicality. He 
was well respected and influential among his colleagues.
  If Bob told me something was true, I knew it was true and not some 
variation of the facts. This is an important quality in someone who 
represents others because it gives them credibility among their 
colleagues. Bob Matsui had that credibility.
  We have all heard the story of Bob's family and their internment at 
the Tule Lake Camp in 1942. I think this probably had a very sobering 
impact on his life.
  I think he knew what could happen in situations of stress and 
military conflict. I think it presented a challenge to him as a young 
man growing up. He clearly overcame that challenge and I think it 
probably had an impact in his knowing what he wanted to do with his 
life, and that was public service.
  One of Bob's most significant legacies will be the work he did to 
help the government make amends with the Japanese Americans who were 
interned during World War II.
  As a member of Congress, Bob was successful in passing legislation 
that offered a formal apology from the government for the internment 
program and provided compensation to victims. This is a great legacy 
and it will be well remembered.
  Another of the areas in which Bob excelled is his knowledge and 
expertise of Social Security as well as tax and trade policy. He had an 
influential place on the House Ways and Means Committee. His leadership 
there will be missed.
  Bob did what he did extraordinarily well. Throughout his career he 
showed that he was a skilled politician as well as a great policymaker.
  In addition to his duties as a House Member, he took on heading the 
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this past election cycle--a 
particularly demanding and grueling position. Despite the enormous 
challenges he faced, he did a superb job in guiding the committee 
through the elections.
  Throughout his long and distinguished career Bob Matsui proved to be 
a dedicated public servant and his constituents considered themselves 
lucky to have his representation. I consider myself lucky to have known 
him.
  We will truly miss him.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
expressing sympathies to the family of Representative Bob Matsui, who 
passed away over the weekend. I was shocked and saddened to hear the 
news about our old friend.
  While few Montanans may know Bob Matsui, he did embody one trait 
Montanans are familiar with. He was always willing to reach out to 
those across the aisle to get the job done. He and I shared this work 
philosophy on free trade especially. He was a tireless advocate in the 
Congress for America's trade agenda and was essential to the enactment 
of many historic international agreements.
  We will surely miss his leadership on critical issues this next 
Congress, such as Social Security, one issue where the American people 
expect and deserve a healthy, vigorous, and open debate. And for that 
type of debate, you could certainly count on Bob Matsui to deliver.
  Despite starting his life as a child unjustly interned by his own 
Government during World War II, Bob later rose to serve in that very 
Government at its highest echelons, as a Member of Congress. How proud 
his family must have been to see this dynamic man elected to public 
office, where he championed legislation to apologize for the internment 
of Japanese American families such as his. Overcoming obstacles and 
injustices to rise to a level of public admiration, respect, and trust 
may sound like a Hollywood story; to Bob, though, it was his life 
story.
  Wanda and I send our prayers and sympathies to his family; his wife 
Doris, son Brian, daughter-in-law Amy, and granddaughter Anna. He will 
be greatly missed by us all.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, it is with great sorrow that I mark the 
passing of Representative Robert Matsui. In his quarter-century of 
service representing California's Fifth District in

[[Page 175]]

the House of Representatives, Robert Matsui won the deep respect and 
affection of everyone who ever worked with him. When he first ran for 
Congress, in 1978, he pledged to bring to the office ``a new form of 
statesmanship.'' For more than 25 years, on a daily basis, he fulfilled 
that promise, and his constituents honored him for it. This past 
November they returned him to the Congress for his fourteenth term, 
with 71 percent of the vote.
  Bob Matsui was a third-generation Japanese American. Like so many of 
us, he was part of a family that had come to the United States for the 
great opportunities this country offers, to build a better life for 
their children. Because Bob Matsui's family was Japanese-American, 
however, he and his parents were taken from their home in Sacramento in 
1942, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They were interned 
for more than three years at Tule Lake, in one of the ``relocation 
centers'' specifically created for Japanese Americans. Bob Matsui 
himself was very young at the time--barely 6 months old at the time of 
internment, not yet 4 years old when the war ended but he felt deeply 
the confusion and anguish of the adults around him. Yet he never lost 
faith in his country and in himself. Inspired by the Kennedy 
administration to enter public service, he dedicated his professional 
life to serving and protecting the rights of all Americans, first as a 
lawyer and then as a public official. He served 8 years on the 
Sacramento City Council before entering the Congress. But the 
experience of his early childhood never left him, and in 1988 he was 
instrumental in ensuring enactment of the Japanese American Redress 
Act, which offered recognition of the terrible, unconstitutional wrongs 
done to Japanese Americans.
  As a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Bob Matsui 
worked unstintingly to assure the safety net for those most in need: 
children, seniors, the disabled, the poor and others who needed an 
advocate. As the ranking minority member of the Social Security 
Subcommittee, he was one of the Social Security system's best-informed 
and most eloquent advocates in the Congress. No one understood better 
than he the indispensable role that Social Security plays in assuring 
basic standards of security and dignity to Americans when their working 
years are over, and no one was more dedicated to keeping the system 
intact. Robert Matsui believed in the social insurance system that 
Rockefeller created to care for retirees, but we as a society expanded 
to care for younger citizens in need, the disabled, widowed and 
survivors. He made politics personal, and because he cared so deeply 
for others, he was able to be a real leader in this realm. His voice 
will be sorely missed.
  Congressman Matsui leaves a legacy of extraordinary integrity, 
commitment and strength. It is fitting that in his memory Bob Matsui's 
family and friends have established The Matsui Foundation for Public 
Service, which will carry forward the principles to which he dedicated 
his life. I express my deepest sympathies to his wife, Doris Okada, his 
son Brian, daughter-in-law Amy, and granddaughter Anna, and thank them 
for sharing him with us these many years.

                          ____________________