Welcome to the House, Rep. Doris Matsui

Did anyone catch Doris Matsui's first speech as a member of the House? Very moving, and it did not take her long to launch into the * plan to privatize social security. I was impressed, and will post the transcript tomorrow.

Already she has been named to one of the most critical committees, Rules.

Welcome to the House, Doris.



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http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=891

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 10, 2005

CONTACT: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider
202-226-7616

Pelosi Appoints Doris Matsui to House Rules Committee
Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi announced today that she will appoint Congresswoman Doris Matsui (D-CA) to the House Rules Committee.

"Doris Matsui will be a powerful and passionate voice on the Rules Committee for the values that her Sacramento constituents hold dear – including strengthening Social Security and expanding health care for working Americans," Pelosi said. "Doris is a rising star in the Democratic Caucus and will be an outstanding Member of the committee."

Congresswoman Matsui was elected on Tuesday to succeed her husband, the late Congressman Bob Matsui, and was sworn in this morning.

The House Committee on Rules determines the guidelines and parameters under which bills will be debated on the floor of the House. Because of its unique power to create and waive rules and frame the debate on the floor, the Rules Committee is considered to be one of the most powerful committees in the House of Representatives.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_2603704

Doris Matsui takes oath of office today
Widow defeats 11 opponents to win seat in Congress formerly held by her late husband

By Jim Wasserman, Associated Press
Inside Bay Area

SACRAMENTO — Fresh from her Tuesday victory in which overwhelming absentee voter turnout crushed 11 opponents, Democrat Doris Matsui is scheduled to be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives today to fill the term of her late husband, Robert T. Matsui. Matsui, 60, left Wednesday for Washington, D.C., planning to take the oath of office about 10:20 a.m. today while joined by 52 other members of California's congressional delegation. After the formal ceremony, U.S. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, will introduce her and she will address her 434 colleagues, House officials said. Robert Matsui, 63, died Jan. 1 of complications from a rare bone barrow disease.

Doris Matsui has promised to support more federal funding for stem cell research in Congress, oppose President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security, support clean energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and win funds to expand transit in Sacramento. Meanwhile, postelection analysis Wednesday revealed that Matsui, a Washington lobbyist and former Clinton White House official, largely won her race before polling places opened Tuesday. Results indicated that absentee voters greatly outnumbered those who actually voted in person — and that 72 percent of them sided with Matsui.

The phenomenon coincided with rising absentee voting statewide, reaching nearly one-third of the votes cast in last year's primary and general elections, according to the California secretary of state's office. Statewide, nearly one in five voters now permanently vote absentee. "When those votes came in, we figured at a 23 percent turnout rate that there was no way mathematically she could lose the race," said Matsui campaign consultant Jeff Raimundo. Sacramento County elections officials called it the first time in the county's history that absentee voters dominated turnout. Fifty-one percent of Tuesday's voters cast mailed ballots compared to 33 percent who did in last November's presidential election. Elections results showed Matsui received 65 percent of the election-day vote and 72 percent of the absentee vote. Amid 24 percent turnout, she won 69 percent of the total vote.

Raimundo said the Matsui campaign did not mount an aggressive absentee ballot campaign, but benefited from its massive use for a one-issue special election. He said the campaign ran two television advertisements during the weeks when absentee voters began to receive their ballots. One highlighted the need for improved flood control in Sacramento and the other defended the current Social Security system. Both issues were mainstays of her late husband's campaigns during 26 years representing Sacramento.

more.....

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On the Net:

Sacramento County Elections Department: http://www.saccounty.net/elections

U.S. House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov

She just got elected on Tuesday!

I'm so glad she won, I think she'll do a great job for all of us in the House.

Thanks, California voters, for sending her to Washington.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2005/03/10/national/w092858S27.DTL

Matsui Sworn in to Replace Late Husband
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, March 10, 2005
(03-10) 12:42 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Two months after her husband Bob's death, Doris Matsui was sworn in Thursday to fill the Sacramento, Calif.-area House seat he held for 26 years. "Despite tragedy and heartbreak life indeed does go on, and I know that somewhere Bob is looking down and smiling," the 60-year-old Democrat said in her first House floor speech after Speaker Dennis Hastert administered the oath of office.

Matsui joins three other widows serving in the House. Californians Mary Bono, a Republican, and Lois Capps, a Democrat, also replaced their husbands in Congress upon their deaths, as did Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson. Bob Matsui, an authority on Social Security and confidant of Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., died Jan. 1 of complications from a rare bone barrow disease. He was 63.

His wife of 38 years announced her candidacy less than two weeks later. She overwhelmed her opponents in a 12-candidate field Tuesday, drawing 69 percent of the vote, far more than the over-50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. Doris Matsui worked in the Clinton White House as a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of public liaison. Prior to her husband's death she was working as a lobbyist on issues including technology, telecommunications and health care.

Matsui cast her first vote Thursday for a transportation bill that passed the House. She said in an interview that she hopes to promote stem cell research, something that might have helped her husband, and join Democratic efforts to oppose President Bush's plan to change Social Security by establishing private accounts. But she said, "I cannot fill my husband's shoes. And besides that I wear a different kind of shoes." Since 1923, 45 congressional widows have gone to Capitol Hill upon the death of their husbands.