Sacramento Rep. Doris Matsui draws cheers, boos in rare public meeting | Opinion
After months of voters calling, begging — and even protesting — for it, Sacramento Rep. Doris Matsui finally held an in-person town hall meeting with a few hundred of her constituents.
Matsui, 81, made it clear that she wanted the evening to focus on the federal shutdown in Washington, D.C., and also on constituents’ rising frustration and fears over cuts to Medicare.
“People are angry and, they should be,” Matsui said. “They see a government held hostage by extremism, or the cost of living goes up.
But her presence Thursday evening, inside the Elks Lodge No. 6 auditorium in Greenhaven, wasn’t just about making herself available. It was also a consequence of a looming 2026 election where Matsui will face Mai Vang, a Sacramento City Councilmember, who is Matsui’s most serious opponent in the 20 years she has served the state capital in Congress. Half Matsui’s age at 40, Vang has already held a dozen or so public events in the last month.
“(Thursday’s) moderated, controlled event with hand-picked attendees was anything but an open town hall,” Vang wrote in a statement to The Bee after the event. “Working people are asking for a clear agenda and bold leadership… the congresswoman cannot claim to be fighting to protect democracy while ignoring her constituents and shying away from their questions.”
Word salads and stage dressing
Matsui was joined on the stage by Sierra Health Foundation CEO Chet Hewitt and Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, the state’s official marketplace for health insurance that was created under the federal Affordable Care Act.
With Donald Trump in the White House and Democrats in the minority of both houses of Congress, Democratic voters have been frustrated with elected leaders they viewed as too passive. Polls have also shown that Democrats were even less popular than Trump. These strong feelings await any Democrat at any town hall meeting. They were waiting for Matsui, and the way she answered legitimate questions only made it harder on her.
Part of the problem was Matsui’s habit of answering direct questions with word salads that were unsatisfying to those hoping for direct answers.
Patricia Johnson, a local nurse, asked: “Will you sign on to the ‘Medicare for All’ bill? HR 3069, and if not, why not?
Matsui answered, in part: “People who have health care now didn’t have it before the Affordable Care Act, and now they’re perhaps losing it again. What we want to do is to continue what we’re doing. I love Medicare!” said Matsui, shouting that last part.
But right now, Trump and Republicans, as you know, are going to try to take everything apart. They don’t care… So what I’m saying is that we haven’t filled that out at all, but let’s keep things going now so we can push forward to make healthcare better, right, to make it better for the future. But let’s keep it going.”
A few people in the crowd pointed out that Matsui hadn’t answered the question. Someone shouted that they were struggling, while she had privileges they didn’t. That devolved quickly into the congresswoman, who is married to billionaire Roger Sant, shouting into the microphone and insisting she actually doesn’t “have privilege.”
Hewitt restored order, but it was clear Matsui was angry and rattled by the questioning. Things went south from there.
A duty to her voters
The last question of the evening went to Valerie Connors, a 54-year-old mom from East Sacramento. Her twin girls, now 26 and no longer on their mother’s insurance plan, are facing individual problems. One is a federal worker who won’t receive a paycheck this month, and the other recently earned her Master’s degree. She has her first job, making $17 an hour — but her inhaler costs $400 per month.
“She skips sprays. That’s how she spreads it out,” Conners said. “I’m so stressed out.”
“That’s really one of the efforts that we’re doing now,” Matsui said. “ We work so hard to get Medicare to be able to negotiate drug prices. We intend to do that when we take the House back.”
Connors was happy to have been addressed directly, but said she was disappointed in the answer.
“I wanted her to say she was going to find a way to lower drug costs,” she said. “She mentioned EpiPens, though, that was nice.”
The inevitable question of Gaza
Toward the end of the evening, Matsui was asked if she would refuse campaign contributions from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Matsui insisted that “it doesn’t matter who gives (her) money,” she “doesn’t look at that.”
The audience booed, and a contingent of activists disrupted the meeting, demanding that Matsui condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza. She would not call it a genocide, and she would not agree to refuse AIPAC donations.
Democrats, who have largely tried to avoid the question of Israel and Palestine, may have hoped the issue would simply fade with enough time. But increasingly, a majority of Democratic voters oppose what they — and I, too — view as a genocide in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli government.
I wasn’t surprised that Matsui refused to give a firm yes or no to the issue, but I was surprised to hear the room full of working and middle-class constituents, sitting in a private club in the middle of one of Sacramento’s wealthiest neighborhoods, clap and agree with the protestors. While the tactics of disrupting the meeting were not particularly appreciated, it does seem as though the message is moving through the Democrats’ voter base — and they can no longer ignore the question.
Ultimately, the protest was what ended the evening’s town hall, as Matsui and Hewitt lost control of the room and shut it down after barely an hour of discussion.
Matsui didn’t get her perfectly civil town hall, but with any luck, she got something more important: A clear understanding of what her constituents want — and need — to hear from their representative. If Matsui can’t deliver, then they’ll start listening to someone who can.
This story was originally published October 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM.
