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Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts

Amy K. Matsui is Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts at the National Women’s Law Center. She works on economic issues affecting low- and moderate-income women and families, with special emphasis on federal and state tax policy and women’s retirement security. Her work with retirement savings policy and federal and state tax credits for working families comprises policy analysis, federal advocacy, and public education and outreach. She also directs the Center's advocacy efforts around federal judicial nominations and diversity in the federal judiciary. Ms. Matsui has worked at the Center since 2002. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Matsui practiced commercial law in the private sector. She clerked for the Honorable Carolyn Dineen King, then-Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in 2000. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, and Stanford Law School.

My Take

One Small Step Back From Brink?

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: February 17, 2012 at 03:18 pm

Yesterday, there was an agreement to vitiate the cloture petition on the nomination of Jesse Furman to the Southern District of New York. In plain English, that means that the Senate minority decided that it was a bad idea to filibuster a district court nominee who was unanimously voted out of committee, especially after faux-filibustering Adalberto Jordan, a Cuban-American nominee to the Eleventh Circuit, a few days earlier.

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More of the Same, Except Worse

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: February 16, 2012 at 11:53 am

The handful of Senators hell-bent on obstruction of judicial nominees is at it again: they have refused to consent to a yes-or-note vote on a nominee to a district court seat on the Southern District of New York, Jesse Furman. As a result, Senator Reid has filed a cloture petition on the nomination, with a vote expected tomorrow morning or early afternoon.

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Rhetorical Question

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: February 14, 2012 at 12:26 pm

If a vote to filibuster an appellate court judicial nominee fails 89-5, but Senator Rand Paul insists on 30 hours of debate before a yes-or-no confirmation vote, does that count as beating a filibuster?

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Senate Confirms Cathy Ann Bencivengo to District Court

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: February 09, 2012 at 05:48 pm

This afternoon, the Senate confirmed Cathy Ann Bencivengo to a seat on the Southern District of California by a vote of 90-6. Judge Bencivengo, who had been rated Unanimously Well-Qualified by the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, was approved without opposition by the Senate Judiciary Committee back in October. Despite the fact that the seat to which she had been nominated had been designated a judicial emergency, Judge Bencivengo’s nomination languished for four months.

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In Case You Missed It: Justice Sotomayor On Sesame Street

Posted by Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts | Posted on: February 09, 2012 at 03:23 pm

For those of you who were raised on Letterman and Super Grover, here is a little post-lunch pick-me-up that counts, in my humble opinion, as light legal research:

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