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

Robert Takeo Matsui (September 17, 1941 – January 1, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served on the Sacramento City Council from 1971 to 1978 and in the U.S. House of Representatives as the congressman for California's 3rd and 5th congressional districts from 1979 until his death at the end of his 13th term in 2005.

Born in Sacramento, California, he 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. After returning to Sacramento following the end of World War II, Matsui attended public schools there, eventually graduating from C. K. McClatchy High School before earning a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. He founded his own Sacramento law practice in 1967. In 1971, Matsui was elected to the Sacramento City Council. He won re-election in 1975 and became vice mayor of the city in 1977. In 1978, Matsui ran for the Democratic nomination in what was then the 3rd District after 12-term incumbent John E. Moss announced his retirement. Winning a five-way Democratic primary, he would go on to be re-elected thirteen times between 1980 and 2004.

In the House, Robert Matsui championed the cause of Japanese-American redress. Joined by fellow California Representative Norman Y. Mineta, who also spent part of his childhood in internment camps, Matsui fought for reparations. In the 99th Congress (1985–1987), Matsui and Mineta first introduced the Japanese American reparations bill, the Civil Liberties Act. Though the bill did not make it to the floor in the 99th Congress, Mineta and Matsui steered the Civil Liberties Act to House passage the following Congress. He was a chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, ranking member of the United States House Committee on Ways and Means, and third-ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. During his term he was noted for his staunch opposition to privatization of Social Security. He had a mostly liberal voting record having opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, the ban on partial-birth abortions, and the Private Securities and Litigations Reform Act.

In late 2004, Matsui entered Bethesda Naval Hospital with pneumonia on December 24. It was a complication from myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare stem cell disorder that causes an inability of the bone marrow to produce blood products, such as red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. He died of pneumonia on January 1, 2005, two days before his 14th term would have commenced. His widow, Doris, was elected to fill his vacant seat in March 2005.