Robert Takeo Matsui (松井 武男, September 17, 1941 – January 1, 2005) was an United States politician from the U.S. state of California. Matsui was a member of the United States Democratic Party and served 13 terms in the United States House of Representatives as the United States Congress for California's 5th congressional district. 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 Japanese American Internment by the U.S. government at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in 1942. Matsui graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, and then graduated from Hastings College of Law. He founded his own Sacramento law practice in 1967 and was elected to the Sacramento, California City Council in 1971. He won re-election in 1975 and became vice mayor of the city in 1977. In the 1978 election, Matsui ran for the House and won. In 1988, Matsui succeeded in helping pass the Japanese-American Redress Act, which produced an official apology from the Federal government for the World War II Japanese American Internment and offered token compensation to victims. He was also instrumental in the designation of Manzanar internment camp as a national historic site and in obtaining land in Washington, D.C. for the memorial to Japanese American patriotism in World War II. He was married to the former Doris Matsui, who is Senior Advisor and Director of Government Relations at the firm of Collier Shannon Scott, PLLC. Until December 1998, Doris Matsui worked as Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy Director of Public Liaison for President Bill Clinton. The Matsuis had one son, Brian, who received his undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University. He was a chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, ranking member of the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, and third-ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means. During his term he was noted for his staunch opposition to privatization of Social Security (United States). In the U.S. House election, 2004, he faced Republican Party (United States) Mike Dugas as his strongest opponent in the General Election for the 5th Congressional District. Matsui was re-elected to office with 71.4% of the vote, compared to Dugas' 23.4%. Green Party (United States) opponent Pat Driscoll and John Reiger of the Peace and Freedom Party (United States) won 3.4% and 1.8% of the vote, respectively. http://vote2004.ss.ca.gov/Returns/usrep/0500.htm (DCCC chairs are chosen in part because they are not expected to face serious competition for re-election.) Matsui entered Bethesda Naval Hospital on December 24, 2004 with pneumonia. 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 on January 1, 2005 at 10:10 p.m. EDT. In the special election held on March 8, 2005 to fill the vacant 5th Congressional District seat, Matsui's widow, Doris Matsui, won the seat with more than 68 percent of the vote. She was sworn in on March 10, 2005.

                       

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