Matsui, Robert T. (Robert Takeo), 1941-2005

MATSUI, Robert T., (Husband of Doris Matsui), a Representative from California; born in Sacramento, Sacramento County, Calif., September 17, 1941; graduated from C.K. McClatchy High School, Sacramento, Calif., 1959; A.B., University of California, Berkeley, Calif., 1963; J.D., Hastings College of Law, University of California, San Francisco, Calif., 1966; lawyer, private practice; councilman, Sacramento, Calif., city council, 1971-1978; city representative, Sacramento Regional Advisory Board of Justice Planning, Sacramento, Calif., Area Civil Defense and Disaster Council, and Sacramento-Yolo Port District Board of Elections; vice mayor, Sacramento, Calif., 1977; elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-sixth and to the thirteen succeeding Congresses; served until his death on January 1, 2005 (January 3, 1979-January 1, 2005); died on January 1, 2005, in Bethesda, Md; interment at East Lawn Memorial Park, Sacramento, Calif.

<p>Robert Takeo Matsui (September 17, 1941 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician from the state of California. Matsui was a member of the Democratic Party and served in the U.S. House of Representatives as the congressman for California's 5th congressional district from 1979 until his death at the end of his 13th term.</p>

<p>The Robert T. Matsui United States Courthouse in Sacramento is named in his honor.</p>

<p>A third-generation Japanese American, Matsui was born in Sacramento, California, and was six months old when he and his family were taken from Sacramento and interned by the U.S. government at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in 1942.</p>

<p>Matsui graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 with a BA in political science, and then from the Hastings College of Law in 1966. He founded his own Sacramento law practice in 1967.</p>

<p>Robert T. Matsui served in the House from 1979 to 2005, but his earliest memories were of an internment camp where his family was separated and where they lived like prisoners, denied their most basic constitutional rights. That experience was formative for Matsui. “Adversity made [Matsui] stronger, and along the way he helped countless others to find strength as well,” noted an observer who reflected on Matsui’s long political career. A social liberal with a pro-market approach to trade, Matsui’s workhorse style of legislating earned the respect of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle during his 26 years in the House.</p>

<p>Robert Takeo (Bob) Matsui was born on September 17, 1941, in Sacramento, California, to Yasuji and Alice Matsui, less than three months before Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Both his parents were born in Sacramento. Following the U.S. declaration of war against Japan, six-month-old Robert Matsui and his family were evacuated from their hometown to an internment camp in April 1942 as part of the relocation of Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast. Becoming family number 25261, the Matsui family initially was sent to the Tule Lake camp in Newell, California—a remote location in the extreme northeast corner of the state. Alice and Robert Matsui were moved to a camp in Caldwell, Idaho, while Yasuji was separated from his family and sent to a Weiser, Idaho, work camp. Alice Matsui gave birth to Robert’s sister, Barbara, at the Caldwell facility. Eventually, the Matsui family reunited and returned to Sacramento following their release three years later. Like most internees whose livelihoods were shattered, the Matsui’s lost their family produce business in Sacramento during internment. After the war, they had to rebuild their lives.</p>

<p>Robert attended William Land Elementary School, California Junior High, and later graduated from C. K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento, California, in 1959. In 1963 he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in political science. At Berkeley, he met Doris Okada, another wartime internee who was born at an internment camp in Poston, Arizona. In 1966 Matsui received his JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in San Francisco and practiced as a lawyer in Sacramento. Robert and Doris married in 1968 and had one son, Brian.</p>