The victories of Working Family Party candidates in recent elections are a glimmer of hope for the future. Great platform that will help the majority of Americans, not the one per cent. Good luck to Mai.
Thank you, Jessica, for featuring Working Parties candidates. I haven't voted for them in the past, because I thought they couldn't win, but you have changed my mind.
My boyfriend's daughter held a fundraiser for Mai recently and he contributed to her campaign. It is time for younger reps to take over for these older entrenched no longer effective politicians. She has lots of energy, enthusiasm and great ideas to make some changes for the better for people in her district. follow her on social media. Let's help her move forward to win this seat! Thank you Jess!
I would rather give USAID a trillion over military. Even if a powerful military is your value, we aren’t doing that in an intelligent way. We prioritize big and flashy over tech and cybersecurity. It seems like that’s an outdated strategy
Those who do take PAC money are those who are steeling our government and our tax money because they no longer for the people. If I could I would donate to each and every progressive candidate who do NOT that PAC money.
ARTICLE II SECTION 4 should be the first line of business!!
I've been a proud paid subscriber or of this newsletter because I trust it to be thoughtful and fair. This post falls short of that standard in ways that matter. Mai Vang is challenging a first generation Japanese feminist who has been an effective representative for Sacramento and California. I am a feminist: Women's Rights and Reproductive freedom were my original motivation (I volunteered at Planned Parenthood as a teenager was the President of the NOW chapter and CA NOW board member in the 80s) I was a founding member of Emily's list and of course women's rights broadened to Human Rights and Justice. I was the commissioner of conservation in the 1970s in high school so Environmental Protection remains a key priority for me. (for the record, I have an am supporting several Working Families Party members). I am disappointed an angered by your biased presentation which berates an effective immigrant Democrat feminist who Mai Vang is bashing.
Here's A Fact-Check and a Challenge to This Interview
The post and the interview have a glaring omission: Doris Matsui was born on September 25, 1944, at the Poston War Relocation Center in Parker, Arizona — one of ten facilities established to incarcerate approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans following the Pearl Harbor attack. Her family was forcibly removed from their home, stripped of their property, and held behind barbed wire by the U.S. government. Although Matsui's family was released when she was just three months old, being raised by parents and grandparents who went through that experience has shaped who she is and how she leads.
For a post that frames Vang's opposition to ICE and immigrant detention as a central campaign virtue, that context is not a footnote. It is the entire story. Doris Matsui has spent decades in Congress fighting against the exact kind of government-sanctioned targeting of communities by ethnicity that she was literally born inside of. In her own words: "Everyday Americans were stripped of their freedom. Many lost everything — their homes, their businesses, and their livelihoods. Day of Remembrance stands as a stark reminder that we cannot afford to be complacent." How is this not relevant to an interview about ICE and immigrant rights?
________________________________________
Matsui’s record is unmatched.
Let's talk about what the scorecards actually show — the kind of data that should appear in any honest political profile.
From March 2005 through May 2026, Matsui has missed only 154 of 13,768 roll call votes — a rate of 1.1%, which is better than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. She shows up, she votes as a Democrat. Consistently. For twenty years.
According to FiveThirtyEight's analysis, Matsui voted with President Biden's stated position 100% of the time during the 117th Congress. There is no daylight between her record and the Democratic caucus on the votes that matter.
On the environment: the League of Conservation Voters gives Matsui a 97% lifetime score and a 97% score for 2025. LCV has called her "a leading voice for climate action in Congress" and one of the co-chairs of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.
On labor: the AFL-CIO has scored her at 100%, 97%, and 98% across recent years for voting with working people.
She is pro-choice with a NARAL endorsement, supports federal health funding that includes abortion funding, has advocated for contraception access, supports emergency contraceptive availability for rape victims in hospitals, and opposes restricting minors from crossing state lines for abortion procedures.
On legislative effectiveness: GovTrack ranked her 17th among all House Democrats for getting bipartisan cosponsors on her bills during the 118th Congress. In 2022, she ranked 11th among all representatives for writing laws that were enacted. She has been the primary sponsor of 16 bills that became law — an exceptional number, given that most legislators pass only a handful in an entire career. This should be compared to AOC who has passed one bill: a water infrastructure bill for Queens with the help of other representatives and Senator Schumer.
Those 16 enacted laws span healthcare, civil rights, technology, environment, and human rights. Here are the highlights the interview did not mention:
The Affordable Care Act. Matsui was instrumental in crafting the Affordable Care Act as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. She led the effort to create the ACA's Prevention and Public Health Fund — the nation's first mandatory funding stream dedicated to improving our public health system. The ACA was the largest expansion of health coverage in American history. Promising single-payer as a contrast ignores that Matsui has been one of its loudest defenders every time Republicans have tried to repeal it. Further the ACA was/is part of a strategy to expand government coverage to eventually get to a single-payer system.
Mental Health. She authored the bipartisan Excellence in Mental Health Act — the first meaningful legislation to increase access to mental health services since 2008 — signed into law by President Obama. It created a $1.1 billion network of community behavioral health clinics offering 24-hour crisis care. In 2022, her follow-up Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Act was signed into law as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, authorizing nationwide expansion of that proven model.
Protecting Seniors. As co-chair of the Democratic Caucus Congressional Task Force on Seniors, Matsui has consistently supported policies protecting and strengthening Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Older Americans Act programs. This newsletter has covered the devastating Medicaid cuts in the current Republican reconciliation bill extensively. Matsui has been fighting those cuts from inside the Energy and Commerce Committee — the committee that marks up that very legislation. Not one word of that appeared in the interview.
Anti-Human Trafficking — and What Bipartisanship Actually Looks Like. This one deserves special attention, because the interview celebrates Mai Vang's commitment to protecting vulnerable people while ignoring Matsui's actual legislative record on exactly that issue. Matsui co-led the bipartisan Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act with then-Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), joined by more than 50 Members of Congress. Their provision was incorporated into the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015, which passed the Senate 99-0 and the House 420-3. President Obama signed it into law. The Senate vehicle was authored by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Matsui reached across the aisle — with Kristi Noem, of all people — to protect trafficking survivors, because getting it done mattered more than ideological purity. That is what effective legislating looks like.
Japanese American Civil Rights. President Biden signed Matsui's Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education Act into law, preserving internment camp sites and mandating that future generations learn this history so it is never repeated. The irony of ignoring this legislation in an interview framed around government persecution of immigrant communities is significant.
Broadband, CHIPS, and Infrastructure. She was an original cosponsor of the USA Telecommunications Act to improve supply chain security in telecom equipment, signed into law as part of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act, and introduced the House amendment to the CHIPS Act to boost investment in American semiconductor manufacturing.
________________________________________
On Age
The implication that 81 is disqualifying is a standard this newsletter does not apply to Bernie Sanders (83), Maxine Waters (86), or others who receive enthusiastic coverage here. That inconsistency deserves acknowledgment. Seniority in Congress is not a bug — it is how you get onto the right committees, chair subcommittees, and actually move legislation. Matsui's two decades on the Energy and Commerce Committee are a resource, not a liability.
________________________________________
On Strategy
The Matsui name has represented Sacramento in Congress since 1979 — first through her late husband Robert, who championed the 1988 legislation providing restitution to Japanese Americans wrongfully interned during WWII, and then through Doris herself. That is not "the old guard." That is legacy, seniority on a critical committee, and institutional power that Democrats desperately need while in the minority.
There are genuinely competitive swing districts where this community's donations could flip seats and change the House majority. Pouring progressive money into unseating one of our most senior Democratic women — on the Energy and Commerce Committee, during one of the most dangerous legislative moments in decades — is a strategic choice this post did not interrogate at all.
Mai Vang may have a bright political future. But the case for replacing Doris Matsui was not made here. What was offered was a one-sided interview stripped of the very history and record that would let readers make an informed judgment. Our readers deserve better than an ageist naïve perspective that attacks another effective woman, feminist, immigrant representative.
Please consider interviewing Ethan Wechtaluk. He's running for Congress in MD-6 and his opponents in the primary are David Trone (billionaire who keeps buying elections) and April McLean Delaney (wife of billionaire, voted for the Laken Riley Act). Website: https://www.ethanformd.com/ Substack: https://ethanformd.substack.com/
The victories of Working Family Party candidates in recent elections are a glimmer of hope for the future. Great platform that will help the majority of Americans, not the one per cent. Good luck to Mai.
AIPAC is by far Hakeem Jeffries' biggest funder!!! What else do we need to know?
Thank you, Jessica, for featuring Working Parties candidates. I haven't voted for them in the past, because I thought they couldn't win, but you have changed my mind.
My boyfriend's daughter held a fundraiser for Mai recently and he contributed to her campaign. It is time for younger reps to take over for these older entrenched no longer effective politicians. She has lots of energy, enthusiasm and great ideas to make some changes for the better for people in her district. follow her on social media. Let's help her move forward to win this seat! Thank you Jess!
Don't forget Supreme Court reform
I would rather give USAID a trillion over military. Even if a powerful military is your value, we aren’t doing that in an intelligent way. We prioritize big and flashy over tech and cybersecurity. It seems like that’s an outdated strategy
Those who do take PAC money are those who are steeling our government and our tax money because they no longer for the people. If I could I would donate to each and every progressive candidate who do NOT that PAC money.
ARTICLE II SECTION 4 should be the first line of business!!
I've been a proud paid subscriber or of this newsletter because I trust it to be thoughtful and fair. This post falls short of that standard in ways that matter. Mai Vang is challenging a first generation Japanese feminist who has been an effective representative for Sacramento and California. I am a feminist: Women's Rights and Reproductive freedom were my original motivation (I volunteered at Planned Parenthood as a teenager was the President of the NOW chapter and CA NOW board member in the 80s) I was a founding member of Emily's list and of course women's rights broadened to Human Rights and Justice. I was the commissioner of conservation in the 1970s in high school so Environmental Protection remains a key priority for me. (for the record, I have an am supporting several Working Families Party members). I am disappointed an angered by your biased presentation which berates an effective immigrant Democrat feminist who Mai Vang is bashing.
Here's A Fact-Check and a Challenge to This Interview
The post and the interview have a glaring omission: Doris Matsui was born on September 25, 1944, at the Poston War Relocation Center in Parker, Arizona — one of ten facilities established to incarcerate approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans following the Pearl Harbor attack. Her family was forcibly removed from their home, stripped of their property, and held behind barbed wire by the U.S. government. Although Matsui's family was released when she was just three months old, being raised by parents and grandparents who went through that experience has shaped who she is and how she leads.
For a post that frames Vang's opposition to ICE and immigrant detention as a central campaign virtue, that context is not a footnote. It is the entire story. Doris Matsui has spent decades in Congress fighting against the exact kind of government-sanctioned targeting of communities by ethnicity that she was literally born inside of. In her own words: "Everyday Americans were stripped of their freedom. Many lost everything — their homes, their businesses, and their livelihoods. Day of Remembrance stands as a stark reminder that we cannot afford to be complacent." How is this not relevant to an interview about ICE and immigrant rights?
________________________________________
Matsui’s record is unmatched.
Let's talk about what the scorecards actually show — the kind of data that should appear in any honest political profile.
From March 2005 through May 2026, Matsui has missed only 154 of 13,768 roll call votes — a rate of 1.1%, which is better than the median of 2.1% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving. She shows up, she votes as a Democrat. Consistently. For twenty years.
According to FiveThirtyEight's analysis, Matsui voted with President Biden's stated position 100% of the time during the 117th Congress. There is no daylight between her record and the Democratic caucus on the votes that matter.
On the environment: the League of Conservation Voters gives Matsui a 97% lifetime score and a 97% score for 2025. LCV has called her "a leading voice for climate action in Congress" and one of the co-chairs of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition.
On labor: the AFL-CIO has scored her at 100%, 97%, and 98% across recent years for voting with working people.
She is pro-choice with a NARAL endorsement, supports federal health funding that includes abortion funding, has advocated for contraception access, supports emergency contraceptive availability for rape victims in hospitals, and opposes restricting minors from crossing state lines for abortion procedures.
On legislative effectiveness: GovTrack ranked her 17th among all House Democrats for getting bipartisan cosponsors on her bills during the 118th Congress. In 2022, she ranked 11th among all representatives for writing laws that were enacted. She has been the primary sponsor of 16 bills that became law — an exceptional number, given that most legislators pass only a handful in an entire career. This should be compared to AOC who has passed one bill: a water infrastructure bill for Queens with the help of other representatives and Senator Schumer.
Those 16 enacted laws span healthcare, civil rights, technology, environment, and human rights. Here are the highlights the interview did not mention:
The Affordable Care Act. Matsui was instrumental in crafting the Affordable Care Act as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. She led the effort to create the ACA's Prevention and Public Health Fund — the nation's first mandatory funding stream dedicated to improving our public health system. The ACA was the largest expansion of health coverage in American history. Promising single-payer as a contrast ignores that Matsui has been one of its loudest defenders every time Republicans have tried to repeal it. Further the ACA was/is part of a strategy to expand government coverage to eventually get to a single-payer system.
Mental Health. She authored the bipartisan Excellence in Mental Health Act — the first meaningful legislation to increase access to mental health services since 2008 — signed into law by President Obama. It created a $1.1 billion network of community behavioral health clinics offering 24-hour crisis care. In 2022, her follow-up Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Act was signed into law as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, authorizing nationwide expansion of that proven model.
Protecting Seniors. As co-chair of the Democratic Caucus Congressional Task Force on Seniors, Matsui has consistently supported policies protecting and strengthening Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Older Americans Act programs. This newsletter has covered the devastating Medicaid cuts in the current Republican reconciliation bill extensively. Matsui has been fighting those cuts from inside the Energy and Commerce Committee — the committee that marks up that very legislation. Not one word of that appeared in the interview.
Anti-Human Trafficking — and What Bipartisanship Actually Looks Like. This one deserves special attention, because the interview celebrates Mai Vang's commitment to protecting vulnerable people while ignoring Matsui's actual legislative record on exactly that issue. Matsui co-led the bipartisan Human Trafficking Prevention, Intervention, and Recovery Act with then-Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), joined by more than 50 Members of Congress. Their provision was incorporated into the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015, which passed the Senate 99-0 and the House 420-3. President Obama signed it into law. The Senate vehicle was authored by Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. Matsui reached across the aisle — with Kristi Noem, of all people — to protect trafficking survivors, because getting it done mattered more than ideological purity. That is what effective legislating looks like.
Japanese American Civil Rights. President Biden signed Matsui's Norman Y. Mineta Japanese American Confinement Education Act into law, preserving internment camp sites and mandating that future generations learn this history so it is never repeated. The irony of ignoring this legislation in an interview framed around government persecution of immigrant communities is significant.
Broadband, CHIPS, and Infrastructure. She was an original cosponsor of the USA Telecommunications Act to improve supply chain security in telecom equipment, signed into law as part of the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act, and introduced the House amendment to the CHIPS Act to boost investment in American semiconductor manufacturing.
________________________________________
On Age
The implication that 81 is disqualifying is a standard this newsletter does not apply to Bernie Sanders (83), Maxine Waters (86), or others who receive enthusiastic coverage here. That inconsistency deserves acknowledgment. Seniority in Congress is not a bug — it is how you get onto the right committees, chair subcommittees, and actually move legislation. Matsui's two decades on the Energy and Commerce Committee are a resource, not a liability.
________________________________________
On Strategy
The Matsui name has represented Sacramento in Congress since 1979 — first through her late husband Robert, who championed the 1988 legislation providing restitution to Japanese Americans wrongfully interned during WWII, and then through Doris herself. That is not "the old guard." That is legacy, seniority on a critical committee, and institutional power that Democrats desperately need while in the minority.
There are genuinely competitive swing districts where this community's donations could flip seats and change the House majority. Pouring progressive money into unseating one of our most senior Democratic women — on the Energy and Commerce Committee, during one of the most dangerous legislative moments in decades — is a strategic choice this post did not interrogate at all.
Mai Vang may have a bright political future. But the case for replacing Doris Matsui was not made here. What was offered was a one-sided interview stripped of the very history and record that would let readers make an informed judgment. Our readers deserve better than an ageist naïve perspective that attacks another effective woman, feminist, immigrant representative.
Trump and his allies are corrupted. The work you do is vital.
The work you do is vital. Trump and his allies are corrupted.
Please consider interviewing Ethan Wechtaluk. He's running for Congress in MD-6 and his opponents in the primary are David Trone (billionaire who keeps buying elections) and April McLean Delaney (wife of billionaire, voted for the Laken Riley Act). Website: https://www.ethanformd.com/ Substack: https://ethanformd.substack.com/
The work you do is special.
I’ve not heard of the Working Families Party?