Norman Mineta

Norman Yoshio Mineta (Japanese: 峯田 良雄, November 12, 1931 – May 3, 2022) was an American politician and U.S. Army officer who served as a Cabinet secretary in the administrations of President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a Republican. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Mineta served as Mayor of San Jose, California, from 1971 to 1975. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1975 until 1995. Mineta served as the United States secretary of commerce during the final months of Bill Clinton's presidency. He was the first person of East Asian descent to serve as a US Cabinet secretary and the first Asian American mayor of a major US city.

As the United States secretary of transportation for President Bush, Mineta was the only Democratic cabinet secretary in the Bush administration. He oversaw the creation of the Transportation Security Administration in response to the September 11 attacks that had occurred early in his tenure. On June 23, 2006, Mineta announced his resignation after more than five years as secretary of transportation, effective July 7, 2006, making him the longest-serving secretary of transportation in the department's history. A month later, the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton announced that Mineta would join it as a partner. In 2010, it was announced that Mineta would join L&L Energy as vice chairman. San Jose International Airport is named after him.

Mineta died on May 3, 2022, from a heart ailment in Edgewater, Maryland, at the age of 90.

Early life and education

Mineta was born in San Jose, California, to Japanese immigrant parents Kunisaku Mineta and Kane Watanabe, who were barred from becoming American citizens at that time by the Immigration Act of 1924. During World War II, the Mineta family was interned for several years at Area 24, 7th Barracks, Unit B, in the Heart Mountain Relocation Center near Cody, Wyoming, along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans. Upon arrival to the camp, Mineta, a baseball fan, had his baseball bat confiscated by authorities because it could be used as a weapon. Many years later, after Mineta was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, a man sent Mineta a $1,500 bat that was once owned by Hank Aaron, which Mineta was forced to return as it violated the congressional ban on gifts valued over $250. Mineta said: "The damn government's taken my bat again."

While detained in the camp, Mineta, a Boy Scout, met fellow scout Alan Simpson, a future United States Senate member from Wyoming, who often visited the Boy Scouts in the internment camp with his troop. The two became close friends and remained political allies throughout their lives.

Mineta graduated from the University of California, Berkeley's School of Business Administration in 1953 with a degree in business administration. Upon graduation, Mineta joined the United States Army and served as a military intelligence officer in Japan and South Korea. He then joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency.

Career

Councilman and mayor of San Jose

In 1967, Mineta was appointed to a vacant San Jose City Council seat by mayor Ron James. He was elected to office for the first time after completing a term in the city council. He was elected vice mayor by fellow councilors during that term.

Mineta ran against 14 other candidates in the 1971 election to replace outgoing mayor Ron James. Mineta won every precinct in the election with over 60% of the total vote and became the 59th mayor of San Jose, the first Japanese-American mayor of a major American city. As mayor, Mineta ended the city's 20-year-old policy of rapid growth by annexation, creating development-free areas in East and South San Jose. His vice mayor Janet Gray Hayes succeeded him as mayor in 1975.

United States Congress

In 1974, Mineta ran for the United States House of Representatives in what was then California's 13th congressional district. The district was previously the 10th District, represented by retiring 11-term Republican Charles Gubser. Mineta won the Democratic nomination and defeated California State Assembly member George W. Milias with 52 percent of the vote. He was reelected ten more times from this Silicon Valley–based district, which was renumbered as the 15th District in 1993, never dropping below 57 percent of the vote.

Mineta co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure between 1992 and 1994. He chaired the committee's aviation subcommittee between 1981 and 1988, and chaired its Surface Transportation subcommittee from 1989 to 1991.

During his career in Congress, Mineta was a key author of the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. He pressed for more funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. Mineta was a driving force in the House of Representatives behind the passage of H.R. 442, while Senator Spark Matsunaga (Hawaii) "almost single-handedly" got the legislation passed in the Senate of the 100th Congress which became the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, a law that officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during World War II.

Private sector

Mineta resigned his seat mid-term to accept a position with Lockheed Martin in 1995. He chaired the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, which in 1997 issued recommendations on minimizing traffic congestion and reducing the aviation accident rate. The Clinton administration adopted many of the commission's recommendations, including reform of the Federal Aviation Administration to enable it to perform more like a business.

In 1999, Mineta received the L. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation.

Mineta was appointed to the board of directors of Horizon Lines effective January 1, 2007. He had formerly served on the board of AECOM Technology Corporation and was on the board of SJW Corp.

Secretary of commerce

In 2000, President of the United States Bill Clinton nominated Mineta to serve as the United States Secretary of Commerce, making him the first Asian American to hold a presidential cabinet post. Clinton had wanted to nominate Mineta as United States Secretary of Transportation in 1992, but Mineta wanted to remain in Congress at that time.

Secretary of transportation

Mineta was appointed United States Secretary of Transportation by President George W. Bush in 2001, a post that he was offered eight years earlier by Bill Clinton. He was the only Democratic Party government official to have served in Bush's cabinet and the first Secretary of Transportation to have previously served in a cabinet position. He became the first Asian American to hold the position, and only the fourth person to be a member of the cabinet under two presidents from different political parties (after Edwin Stanton, Henry L. Stimson and James R. Schlesinger). In 2004, Mineta received the Tony Jannus Award for his distinguished contributions to commercial air transportation.

Following Bush's reelection, Mineta was invited to continue in the position, and he did so until resigning in June 2006. When he stepped down on July 7, 2006, he was the longest-serving Secretary of Transportation since the position's inception in 1967.

September 11 attacks

Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission about his experience in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center with Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney as American Airlines Flight 77 approached The Pentagon was not included in the 9/11 Commission Report. In one colloquy testified by Mineta, the vice president refers to orders concerning the plane approaching the Pentagon:

There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant.

Commissioner Lee Hamilton queried if the order was to shoot down the plane, to which Mineta replied that he did not know that specifically.

Mineta's testimony to the commission on Flight 77 differs somewhat significantly from the account provided in the January 22, 2002, edition of The Washington Post, as reported by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz in their series "10 Days in September".

9:32 a.m.

The Vice President in Washington: Underground, in Touch With Bush

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, summoned by the White House to the bunker, was on an open line to the Federal Aviation Administration operations center, monitoring Flight 77 as it hurtled toward Washington, with radar tracks coming every seven seconds. Reports came that the plane was 50 miles out, 30 miles out, 10 miles out—until word reached the bunker that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.