"California and the nation have lost a great friend and public servant. I have known Juanita for many years, having served with her in the California legislature in the early `90s. She was a champion for the consumer and fought injustice wherever she saw it. She always valued public service and served her state and nation with grace and honor.
"Juanita's Congressional record included several distinguishing firsts, including being the first African-American woman to give the national Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address and initiating the annual Memorial Day Tribute to Women in the Military. Her solid commitment and advocacy will be greatly missed.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family."
Our country is worse off today, but we are better off thanks to all Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald did for our country. The joyful occasion of thousands of us gathering in San Diego as proud Democrats will now have a somber tone as we mourn the passing of a great leader. We'll miss her, she was a woman of firsts.
She was the first African American woman to serve on the Carson City Council; the first to hold the position of Chairwoman for two powerful California State Assembly committees (Insurance; and Revenue & Taxation) in her first term. She was the first African American woman to give the national Democratic response to President Bush's weekly radio address, and the first to be named Honorary Curator of the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach.
Additionally, Millender-McDonald was the first Democratic Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues to lead the women on two groundbreaking meetings, the first with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to talk about the plight of women globally, and another with the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange to develop strategies for increasing women's investments and net worth.
She also convened the first meeting between women members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the only women to serve on the High Court, to discuss issues of national importance to women. She also led a delegation of 27 women to meet with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, taking the Families First Agenda to 35 states across the nation, another first.
* the Projects of National and Regional Significance - a $1.8 billion program to address national transportation arteries congestion and mitigation. * the historic Alameda Corridor initiative in the 90's; * the Mother-to-Child HIV/AIDS Transmission Act - legislation the President has established as his $15 billion African AIDS initiative; * legislation to increase diabetes research in minority and female populations; * the American-Asian Justice Act to allow foreign-born children of former and current American servicemen to be united with their American families; * the Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act of 2000, which directs the National Archives to preserve the records of former African American slaves for future generations to trace their family history; * the Prohibition Against Alcohol Trafficking Act (PAAT Act) to end the sale of alcohol to minors via the internet. * legislation that directs the Secretary of Education to study and report to Congress of the troubling dropout rate among Latino, Native American; American Samoan and African American high school students; * legislation to secure $2 million to reduce the backlog of Equal Employment Opportunity complaints, including sexual harassment allegations of female air traffic controllers; * the Anti-terrorism/Port Security Act of 2003; * the Terrorist Threat to Public Transportation Assessment Act of 2001; * the Child Safety Lock on Firearms Act; Date Rape and Violence Act; Sexual Trafficking.
