A fast-rising star in California politics, Juanita Millender-McDonald won her seat in the United States House of
Representatives just six years after capturing her first elected
office. From her position on the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee, Millender-McDonald shaped
transportation legislation and federal programs that directly
affected her Los Angeles district. In 2007 she made history
by becoming one of the first African-American women
to chair a standing committee in Congress, the House
Administration Committee.1
Juanita Millender-McDonald was born Juanita Millender
on September 7, 1938, in Birmingham, Alabama, one
of five children raised by Shelly and Everlina (Dortch)
Millender. After her mother, Everlina, died, Shelly
Millender, a minister, moved his family to California.
Juanita Millender married James McDonald Jr. on July
26, 1955, and by the time she was 26, the couple had
five children. A homemaker for 15 years, Millender-McDonald returned to college, earning a BS in business
administration from California’s University of Redlands in
1981. Millender-McDonald earned an MA in educational
administration from California State University in Los
Angeles in 1988. After teaching math and English in a public high school, she worked as an administrator in the
Los Angeles unified school district—eventually directing its
gender equality programs.2
Millender-McDonald first entered politics at the
local level in Los Angeles and served as a delegate to the
Democratic National Conventions in 1984, 1988, and
1992. In 1982 she worked on behalf of the unsuccessful
gubernatorial campaign of longtime Los Angeles mayor Tom
Bradley. Afterward she worked on several local campaigns
before entering and winning election for a seat on the
Carson City council in 1990. She was adroit at building
networks of political support during the race. The first
time she asked for help from United States Representative
Mervyn Malcolm Dymally, he declined, telling Millender-McDonald, “Local politics is too divisive; I don’t want to get
involved.” But she was persistent. Dymally said, “She came
back, this time with a delegation of friends and supporters.
I said, ‘What do you want?’ She said, ‘I need your
endorsement.’ I said, ‘You have it.’”3 Millender-McDonald
became the first African-American woman elected to
the council and in 1991 served as Carson City mayor
pro tempore. In 1992, following the reapportionment of
California state assembly districts, Millender-McDonald defeated two incumbent assemblymen whose Los Angeles-area
districts had been merged. The contest broke down
largely by race, and Millender-McDonald prevailed when
the incumbents split the white vote; she went on to serve in
the California state assembly until 1996.4 Within her first
year in the assembly, she chaired two panels: the insurance
committee and the revenue and taxation committee. From
those posts, she sponsored a major transportation bill to
create the Alameda Corridor, a national transportation
artery designed to improve railroad and highway access
to the San Pedro Bay Ports, which constitute one of the
nation’s largest shipping complexes.5
In December 1995, Millender-McDonald announced
her candidacy to fill a U.S. House seat left vacant by the
resignation of Representative Walter R. Tucker III. Tucker’s
congressional district—which encompassed suburbs south
of Los Angeles, including Carson and Compton—was
predominantly Democratic and working-class. African
Americans and Hispanic Americans composed roughly 75
percent of the population. Although no GOP challenger
entered the March 26, 1996, special election to fill the
remainder of the 104th Congress (1995–1997), Millender-McDonald faced nine other candidates, including fellow
state assemblyman Willard H. Murray and Robin Tucker,
the wife of Walter Tucker. With support from former
longtime speaker of the state assembly and San Francisco
Mayor Willie Brown, Millender-McDonald won with
27 percent of the vote; her nearest competitor, Murray,
received 20 percent. The Democratic primary for the full
term in the 105th Congress (1997–1999) was held on the
same day, and Millender-McDonald prevailed over Murray
by an even narrower margin: 24 to 21 percent.6 In the
fall 1996 campaign for the 105th Congress, she defeated
Republican Michael E. Voetee with 85 percent of the vote.
Millender-McDonald won her subsequent five re-elections
with majorities of at least 75 percent. In 2006, she defeated
Republican Herb Peters with 82 percent of the vote.7
After she was sworn into the House on April 16,
1996, Millender-McDonald served on the Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee and the Small Business
Committee. She kept both assignments throughout her
congressional tenure. In the 106th Congress (1999–2001),
she was appointed Ranking Member of the Small Business
Subcommittee on Empowerment.8 Democratic leaders
also named her a regional party Whip, and in the 107th
Congress (2001–2003) she co-chaired the Democratic Caucus for Women’s Issues. In the 108th Congress (2003–
2005) she drew assignments on the House Administration
Committee and the Joint Printing Committee, and she
was appointed Ranking Member of the Small Business
Subcommittee on Tax, Finance, and Exports.9 In the
109th Congress (2005–2007), Democratic Leader Nancy
Pelosi of California named Millender-McDonald Ranking
Member of the House Administration Committee.10 After
Democrats regained control of the House in the 2006
elections, Millender-McDonald became chairwoman of
the House Administration Committee. She also held the
vice chair post on the Joint Committee on the Library,
whose membership roster was drawn from the House
Administration Committee and the Senate Rules and
Administration Committee.
Many of Millender-McDonald’s legislative initiatives
came from her seat on the Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee. In 2001 Millender-McDonald authored the
Terrorism Threat to Public Transportation Assessment
Act—a measure to evaluate vulnerabilities in the nation’s
mass transit systems. She also was a lead sponsor of the
Nuclear Waste Responsible Component and Protection
Act, which sought to ensure environmentally sound and
safe means of transporting and storing chemical waste
outside of inner cities. Her place on the Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee also allowed her to attend to
transportation projects directly affecting her district. During
her first months in the House, Millender-McDonald
secured $400 million in federal loan guarantees necessary
to complete her longtime work on the Alameda Corridor, a
20-mile railroad artery that connects the national rail system
to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. In the 108th
Congress, Millender-McDonald helped draft the six-year
Transportation Equity Act—which brought in more than
$87 million in federal money for highway projects in and
around her district. Her addition to that bill, the Projects
of National and Regional Significance program, allocated
more than $6.6 billion toward major transportation
projects nationally.11
Much of Millender-McDonald’s House career was
dedicated to the interests she held since her days in the
California assembly: the Los Angeles public school system,
job training, childcare, education, women’s issues, and
combating drug abuse. Millender-McDonald also worked
on promoting awareness of health issues like cervical cancer,
AIDS, asthma, and bone marrow registration. Although she worked away from the limelight, Millender-McDonald
occasionally orchestrated dramatic political moments.
In 1996 she brought Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
director John Deutsch to a Watts town hall meeting, where
Deutsch fielded questions about allegations that the CIA
funneled proceeds from the sale of illegal drugs to purchase
arms for the Nicaraguan Contras. Three years later, seeking
to boost the stalled ambassadorial appointment to New
Zealand of former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of
Illinois, Millender-McDonald staged a sit-in at the office of
Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who was blocking
the appointment.12
In mid-April 2007, Millender-McDonald took a six-week
leave of absence from her House duties to receive treatment
for cancer. She passed away at her home in Compton
on April 21. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remembered
Millender-McDonald as “a trailblazer, always advocating
for the full participation of all Americans in the success and
prosperity of our country.”13
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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