Burnt Orange Report

Congressman Matsui dies

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

I didn't know much about him other than he was a California Democrat and and as the third-ranking member of Ways and Means, he was our pointman against privatization of Social Security. But there was way more to him. He was born in 1941 and a year later, his family was put in a Japanese internment camp for the rest of the war. He was one of the members of Congress who helped pass legislation years later to officially apologize for the internment and give survivors compensation.

He also had some issues he was at odds with the part over, like global free trade. But he had given ever indication the passed few weeks before his death that he was going to fight against Bush and his partial-privatization scheme. I think Nancy Pelosi said it best, "With the passing of Bob Matsui, our country has lost a great leader and America's seniors have lost their best friend in Congress."

This is a guest post by Nathan Nance. Nate is a sports/news clerk at the Waco Tribune-Herald and writer/editor of Common Sense a Texas-based Democratic Web log. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.