Norman Mineta | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait,c. 2001 | |
| 14thUnited States Secretary of Transportation | |
| In office January 25, 2001 – July 7, 2006 | |
| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Rodney Slater |
| Succeeded by | Mary Peters |
| 33rdUnited States Secretary of Commerce | |
| In office July 21, 2000 – January 20, 2001 | |
| President | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | William M. Daley |
| Succeeded by | Donald Evans |
| Ranking Member of theHouse Transportation Committee | |
| In office January 3, 1995 – October 10, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Bud Shuster |
| Succeeded by | Jim Oberstar |
| Chair of theHouse Transportation Committee | |
| In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Bob Roe |
| Succeeded by | Bud Shuster |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia | |
| In office January 3, 1975 – October 10, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Robert Lagomarsino (redistricted) |
| Succeeded by | Tom Campbell |
| Constituency | 13th district (1975–1993) 15th district (1993–1995) |
| 59thMayor of San Jose | |
| In office January 9, 1971 – January 9, 1975 | |
| Preceded by | Ron James |
| Succeeded by | Janet Gray Hayes |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Norman Yoshio Mineta (1931-11-12)November 12, 1931 San Jose,California, U.S. |
| Died | May 3, 2022(2022-05-03) (aged 90) Edgewater, Maryland, U.S. |
| Resting place | Oak Hill Memorial Park |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BS) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Unit | Army Military Intelligence Corps |
Mineta supporting theIntermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Recorded October 23, 1991 | |
Norman Yoshio Mineta[1] (Japanese:峯田 良雄, November 12, 1931 – May 3, 2022) was an American politician andU.S. Army officer who served as aCabinet secretary in the administrations of PresidentBill Clinton, a Democrat, andGeorge W. Bush, aRepublican. He was a member of theDemocratic Party.
Mineta served asMayor of San Jose, California, from 1971 to 1975. He served as a member of theUnited States House of Representatives from 1975 until 1995. Mineta served as theUnited 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.[2][3]
As theUnited States secretary of transportation for President Bush, Mineta was the only Democratic cabinet secretary in theBush administration. He oversaw the creation of theTransportation Security Administration in response to theSeptember 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 firmHill & Knowlton announced that Mineta would join it as a partner. In 2010, it was announced that Mineta would joinL&L Energy as vice chairman.San Jose International Airport is named after him.
Mineta died on May 3, 2022, from a heart ailment inEdgewater, Maryland, at the age of 90.[4]
Mineta was born inSan Jose, California, toJapanese immigrant parents Kunisaku Mineta and Kane Watanabe, who were barred from becomingAmerican citizens at that time by theImmigration Act of 1924.[5] DuringWorld War II, the Mineta family wasinterned for several years at Area 24, 7th Barracks, Unit B, in theHeart Mountain Relocation Center nearCody, Wyoming, along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants andJapanese Americans.[6] Upon arrival to the camp, Mineta, a baseball fan, had hisbaseball 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 byHank 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."[7]
While detained in the camp, Mineta, aBoy Scout, met fellow scoutAlan Simpson, a futureUnited States Senate member fromWyoming, 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.[8]
Mineta graduated from theUniversity of California, Berkeley'sSchool of Business Administration in 1953 with a degree inbusiness administration. Upon graduation, Mineta joined theUnited States Army and served as amilitary intelligence officer inJapan andSouth Korea. He then joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency.[5]
In 1967, Mineta was appointed to a vacantSan Jose City Council seat by mayorRon James.[9] 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.[10]
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 59thmayor of San Jose, the firstJapanese-American mayor of a major American city.[11] 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 mayorJanet Gray Hayes succeeded him as mayor in 1975.[12]
In 1974, Mineta ran for theUnited States House of Representatives in what was thenCalifornia's 13th congressional district. The district was previously the 10th District, represented by retiring 11-term RepublicanCharles Gubser. Mineta won the Democratic nomination and defeatedCalifornia State Assembly memberGeorge W. Milias with 52 percent of the vote.[13] He was reelected ten more times from thisSilicon Valley–based district, which was renumbered as the 15th District in 1993, never dropping below 57 percent of the vote.[14]
Mineta co-founded theCongressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair.[15] He served as chairman of theUnited States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure between 1992 and 1994.[16] He chaired the committee's aviation subcommittee between 1981 and 1988, and chaired its Surface Transportation subcommittee from 1989 to 1991.[17]
During his career in Congress, Mineta was a key author of the landmarkIntermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act.[16] He pressed for more funding for theFederal 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[18] which became theCivil Liberties Act of 1988, a law that officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during World War II.[19]
Mineta resigned his seat mid-term to accept a position withLockheed Martin in 1995.[20] He chaired the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, which in 1997 issued recommendations on minimizingtraffic 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.[21]
In 1999, Mineta received theL. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation.[22]
Mineta was appointed to the board of directors ofHorizon Lines effective January 1, 2007. He had formerly served on the board ofAECOM Technology Corporation and was on the board ofSJW Corp.[23]
In 2000,President of the United StatesBill Clinton nominated Mineta to serve as theUnited States Secretary of Commerce, making him the firstAsian American to hold a presidential cabinet post.[24] Clinton had wanted to nominate Mineta asUnited States Secretary of Transportation in 1992, but Mineta wanted to remain in Congress at that time.[25]
Mineta was appointedUnited States Secretary of Transportation by PresidentGeorge W. Bush in 2001, a post that he was offered eight years earlier by Bill Clinton. He was the onlyDemocratic 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 (afterEdwin Stanton,Henry L. Stimson andJames R. Schlesinger).[26] In 2004, Mineta received theTony Jannus Award for his distinguished contributions to commercial air transportation.[27]
FollowingBush'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.[28]
Mineta's testimony to the9/11 Commission about his experience in thePresidential Emergency Operations Center withVice President of the United StatesDick Cheney asAmerican Airlines Flight 77 approachedThe Pentagon was not included in the9/11 Commission Report.[29] In onecolloquy 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.
— Norman Mineta,9/11 Commission[30]
CommissionerLee Hamilton queried if the order was to shoot down the plane, to which Mineta replied that he did not know that specifically.[30]
Mineta's testimony to the commission on Flight 77 differs somewhat significantly from the account provided in the January 22, 2002, edition ofThe Washington Post, as reported byBob Woodward andDan 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.
Mineta shouted into the phone to Monte Belger at the FAA: "Monte, bring all the planes down." It was an unprecedented order—there were 4,546 airplanes in the air at the time. Belger, the FAA's acting deputy administrator, amended Mineta's directive to take into account the authority vested in airline pilots. "We're bringing them down per pilot discretion," Belger told the secretary.
"Fuck pilot discretion," Mineta yelled back. "Get those goddamn planes down."
Sitting at the other end of the table, Cheney snapped his head up, looked squarely at Mineta and nodded in agreement.
— Dan Balz and Bob Woodward,The Washington Post[31]
This same article reports that the conversation between Cheney and the aide occurred at 9:55 a.m., about 30 minutes later than the time that Mineta had cited (9:26 a.m.) during his testimony to the 9/11 Commission.
After hearing of Mineta's orders, Canadian transport ministerDavid Collenette issued orders to ground all civilian aircraft traffic across Canada, resulting inOperation Yellow Ribbon. On September 21, 2001, Mineta sent a letter to all US airlines forbidding them from practicingracial profiling or subjectingMiddle Eastern orMuslim passengers to a heightened degree of pre-flight scrutiny. He stated that it was illegal for the airlines to discriminate against passengers based on race, color, national or ethnic origin, or religion. Subsequently, administrative enforcement actions were brought against three airlines based on alleged infringements of these rules, resulting in multimillion-dollar settlements. Mineta voiced his intention to "absolutely not" implement racial screenings in a60 Minutes interview just after 9/11. He later recalled his decision "was the right thing [and] constitutional" based on his own experience as a member of those who had "lost the most basic human rights" as a result of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.[6]
TheSan Jose International Airport in San Jose was named after Mineta in November 2001 while he was serving as Secretary of Transportation.[32] TheMineta Transportation Institute, located atSan Jose State University, and portions ofCalifornia State Route 85 are named after him.[33][34]
White House Press SecretaryTony Snow announced on June 23, 2006, that Mineta would resign effective July 7, 2006, because "he wanted to." A spokesman said Mineta was "moving on to pursue other challenges." He left office as the longest-serving Secretary of Transportation in history.[35]
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Hill & Knowlton announced on July 10, 2006, that Mineta would join the firm as vice chairman, effective July 24, 2006.[36]
In 2005, Mineta received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member and Google co-founderLarry Page.[37][38] In October 2006, Mineta won theWright Brothers Memorial Trophy.[39] In December 2006, he was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom.[40] In 2007, the Japanese government conferred upon him the Grand Cordon,Order of the Rising Sun.[41]
On February 4, 2008, the day before the closely contested California Democratic primary, Mineta endorsedBarack Obama.[42]
Beginning in the summer of 2008, Mineta began service as chairman of a panel of theNational Academy of Public Administration overseeing a study of modernization efforts at theUnited States Coast Guard. Other notable members of the panel include former director ofUnited States Office of Personnel ManagementJanice Lachance and formerNASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) administratorSean O'Keefe.[43]
In June 2010, Mineta was named co-chair of theJoint Ocean Commission Initiative. On August 10, 2010, he was named vice chair ofL&L Energy, Inc., which was headquartered inSeattle and operatedcoal mines and other facilities related to coal production in China.[44]
Mineta was a recipient of theChubb Fellowship atYale University from 2015 to 2016.[45]
TheMineta Transportation Institute was named after him. It was established by Congress in 1991 as a research institute focusing on issues related tointermodal surface transport in theUnited States. It is part of San Jose State University'sLucas Graduate School of Business in San Jose, California, and is currently directed by Karen Philbrick.
In 2001, the San Jose International Airport adopted his name to honor him while he was serving as the United States Secretary of Transportation. In 2024, a statue was erected there in his honor.[46]
On September 15, 2008,California State Route 85, a freeway connecting the South San Jose area withMountain View, California, was also designated the Norman Y. Mineta Highway in remembrance of Mineta.[47]
In 2022, Congress renamed the Department of Transportation headquarters building as the William T. Coleman, Jr. and Norman Y. Mineta Federal Building, in honor of Mineta and another former Secretary,William Thaddeus Coleman Jr.[48]
Mineta's first marriage was to May Hinoki, which lasted from 1961 to 1986.[49] In 1991, Mineta married United Airlines flight attendant Danealia "Deni" Brantner.[50] Mineta had two children from his first marriage and two stepchildren from Danealia "Deni" Brantner's previous marriage. He had 11 grandchildren.[19]
Mineta died on May 3, 2022, from a heart ailment inEdgewater, Maryland, at the age of 90.[4]
2001 – City Council approves naming the airport to "Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport" in honor of the former Mayor and long-term Congressman.
Awards Council member Larry Page presents the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement to Norman Mineta, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, at the 2005 International Achievement Summit in New York.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Mayor of San Jose 1971–1975 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Commerce 2000–2001 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Transportation 2001–2006 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia's 13th congressional district 1975–1993 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromCalifornia's 15th congressional district 1993–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chair of theHouse Transportation Committee 1993–1995 | Succeeded by |
| New office | Chair of theCongressional Asian Pacific American Caucus 1994–1995 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Ranking Member of theHouse Transportation Committee 1995 | Succeeded by |
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| Transportation and Infrastructure* (1947–) | ||
| Note | * Alternately namedPublic Works in 80th through 93rd Congresses andPublic Works and Transportation in 94th through 103rd Congresses. | |
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