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“One thing about being small in stature is that you can surprise people when they realize how deeply concerned you are about an issue — and how much you know about it,” Doris Matsui says as she momentarily glances out the 12th-story window of her district office in the federal courthouse building named for her late husband, Congressman Robert Matsui. Her office is in some ways an aerie that offers a commanding view of the Tower Bridge, The Railyards, the Sacramento River and West Sacramento (which she also represents).

Her peek outside is far from wistful. Doris Matsui loves where she is. This age-irrelevant leader may be 80 years old, but she absolutely percolates with ideas, energy and a profound sense of herself. Elected last November to her 10th full term as a U.S. congresswoman, Matsui remains an emphatic believer in the legendary Democratic lawmaker Tip O’Neill admonition that “all politics is local.”

Wearing a tailored, bold-orange pantsuit, dark blouse and low heels, Matsui is a study in professionalism. She’s friendly, informed and quick to respond to any question tossed in her direction. But she doesn’t do glib. “You’ll never see her pounding a podium to be flashy,” says longtime CBS-TV and iHeart network political analyst Gary Dietrich.  
Instead, Matsui has a reputation for being a highly effective, mostly behind-the-scenes political force. She spent nearly two decades in Congress, first by running to complete the term of her late husband Robert’s seat (just two days after his funeral in 2005), then for her first full term in 2006. In that time, she navigated the sea of changes that accompanied very different U.S. presidents at the helm: Republican George W. Bush, two terms; Democrat Barack Obama, two terms; Republican Donald Trump, one term; Democrat Joe Biden, one term; and now, Donald Trump 2.0, the only president since William Howard Taft to be elected to two non-sequential terms.

“I first got elected the year Hurricane Katrina happened,” she says late one recent afternoon. “It came out at the time that Sacramento was considered the second-most flood-prone city in the U.S. after New Orleans.” That Louisiana landmark found itself 80 percent underwater by the time the devastating storm had left. 

“So I went to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and asked about raising the Folsom Dam, and then I asked about shoring up the levees. They said the first simply wouldn’t work. That’s when I got busy trying to learn everything I could about infrastructure and flood protection.”
As a newly elected member of Congress “and a woman, I knew I had some obstacles facing me,” she says. “I found out that when I asked pretty basic questions it was easy for the engineers to dismiss me with pretty basic answers. That’s when I started asking those all-important second questions, the ones that asked for details.”

“I think her legacy will be her tireless energy, making the greater Sacramento region safer from catastrophic floods,” says Steve Swatt, a former state Capitol reporter, university instructor and author or coauthor of several books on California’s political history. “This area has always been one of the most vulnerable communities in the country, suffering devastating floods in 1986 and 1997. She’s helped secure billions of dollars in federal funds for significant levee and Folsom Dam improvements and the widening of the Sacramento Weir.” 

Among other assignments, Matsui chairs the influential U.S. Energy and Commerce Committee, which she calls “one of the top three committees since it deals with issues facing at least 70 percent of all the jurisdictions in the House of Representatives.” Asked if she fears being replaced by the new presidential regime making its way through the bureaucracy, she makes a facial expression that could be translated as the stage direction: She scoffs at the idea. “They can’t replace anyone on a congressional committee,” she says. When she lowers her voice and adds, “I’m not going anywhere,” you tend to believe her.

Matsui allows that she’s “been through a lot of changes” since first being elected. “I’m not a conservative, but I’ve worked with many of them through the years and still do. What I find is that the really good leaders, regardless of their political (affiliation), respect the institutions of our government.”

“When I’m in Sacramento,” she says, “people stop me on the street wondering about the impact something will have on their lives. I respond to every inquiry, but that doesn’t mean I’m able to go down every rabbit hole.” She smiles. “I always stand firm on what my constituents want. They first put me here and have put me back here every two years.”

That remark may explain more about Matsui’s longevity than the usual theories — that she’s in a “safe seat,” one she inherited from her perennially popular late husband. But despite the pedigree of being a congressman’s spouse for many years before she herself sought public office, Matsui had spent years getting to know those constituents she would come to represent.

“She already knew her constituents and what they needed,” says Sandy Smoley, who served five terms on the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors and was California’s secretary of health and human services under Gov. Pete Wilson. Of note is that Smoley, who was profiled in this column two years ago, lost her own bid for Congress to Robert Matsui — who was also seeking the seat for the first time — by seven percentage points. 

“Doris’ leadership skills were honed in the volunteer sector, just as mine and other elected women were,” Smoley says. “She volunteered her time in Junior League” and countless other organizations. It allowed her to put a finger on the pulse of the community. “It’s a pretty common pathway for women who eventually run for office — and win.”

Although Smoley is a lifelong Republican, she always found Doris Matsui, a Democrat, “fair and approachable. She’s a can-do person, and that’s where her strength lies. When you go to her with a problem and she agrees with you — like Sacramento’s urgent need to have its levees repaired — she takes the ball and runs with it.”

Matsui’s district includes Sacramento, Elk Grove, West Sacramento, Galt, Rancho Murieta, Wilton and communities in the Delta area. In her decades in office, she’s been responsible for bringing billions of dollars to the expansive region. In 2024 alone, she secured $15 million to develop Bryte Park in West Sac, nearly $2 million for that city’s Great California Delta Trail, including a Clarksburg Branch Line Trail extension and $500,000 for Galt’s Walker Community Park.

She credits her fellow Congressional committee members “as well as colleagues across all levels of government” with securing — again, just in one year — $50 million for SMUD’s Smart Grid Program, nearly $28 million for La Familia’s Greening North Franklin Project, $22 million for the Green Means Go Program of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and $2 million for the City of Sacramento’s urban forestry and various environmental projects.

Matsui has been married for five years to retired businessman Roger Sant, who’s a “very active 93 years old. He’s on nine boards of directors!” She says she and Sant, the co-founder of AES Corporation, an international energy company, had been friends for years.  

“We met initially through our service on the Smithsonian Institution Board of Regents.” Between the two of them they have six grown children and eight grandchildren — all of whom get together regularly. In fact, in Matsui’s offices, there’s a photo of the entire combined family standing in front of the rural home of one of Roger’s kids. 

Asked if she thinks about resting on her laurels, i.e., retiring, she leans forward and says, “Oh, I’m running again (in 2026). Absolutely.” That prospect and promise make her seem instantly taller. 

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