Eshoo reflects on career in Congress

This was the first time that Eshoo learned about lifetime insurance caps, which maxed out insurance-covered services an individual can receive at a certain dollar amount. For disabled individuals, those caps were debilitating — and for more than eight years, Eshoo carried legislation, from Congress to Congress, that would eliminate them. 

Finally, that legislation made its way into the Affordable Care Act, where it has made a difference in hundreds of millions of Americans’ lives ever since. As she steps away from a 32-year tenure in Congress representing San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, it’s stories like these that exemplify her term. 

“You have to always hold the long view,” Eshoo said. “When things didn’t go the way I wanted them to, I just doubled down on it. It just gave me that much more internal energy to see that the mission would be accomplished — you certainly can’t throw the towel in. No way.” 

Health care had long been a priority for Eshoo since her days on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. After her election to the board in 1982, she worked to establish health care clinics, still standing today, that would literally meet people where they were at — in areas like Daly City, East Palo Alto and Fair Oaks. 

It was that experience that informed her time working on national health care policy: advocating for changes in women’s health, including reclassifying reconstructive surgery after mastectomies as necessary instead of cosmetic and ensuring pediatric care — like clinical trials and prescriptions — were accurately designed for children, among other examples. 

“The experience that I had in the county was extraordinary,” she said. “I understood how it worked on the ground. I understood how to make it better. I understood what was wrong and needed to be fixed.” 

Her longtime position on the Energy and Commerce Committee facilitated that work, Eshoo said. 

She’s also been a longtime defender of net neutrality — the principle that internet service providers cannot prioritize or slow down access to certain websites. In an increasingly online world, that’s more important than ever, Eshoo maintained, citing a lawsuit where Santa Clara County firefighters alleged that Verizon had slowed down their data, resulting in slower fire response times. 

A recent court ruling striking down the Federal Communication Commission’s net neutrality rules is one blow, and the Trump administration’s looming move-in is another, she acknowledged — but to Eshoo, it’s best categorized as a delay in the fight. 

“The policy of net neutrality, I think, is a necessity for consumers to protect them, but also for those that work in public safety, because they all depend on notifications,” she said. “We live to fight this another day.” 

Additionally, her work on the creation of three new governmental agencies — including the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health — remains a highlight of her career. 

To Democrats on the Hill and at home anxious about what a Republican trifecta in the House, Senate and White House could mean for policy priorities, goals and basic human rights, she shared a similar message of hope and perseverance. 

“Every generation has had challenges. The challenges are not new to us, and no generation of Americans have ever said, ‘this is so tough, we’re throwing the towel in on this,’” Eshoo said. “I’m not attracted to fear. … I want to keep the hope going.” 

That doesn’t mean her career in public service has been without its setbacks. Recently, a five-bill package related to pediatric cancer was abruptly cut from a government spending package, a loss about which Eshoo said she was “heartbroken.” But she encourages members of the incoming Congress to pick the issue up and not let it go. 

“You have to be tenacious,” she said. 

For her successor, newly sworn-in U.S. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, Eshoo offers similar advice — and a reminder to keep your word, love the learning process and, perhaps most importantly, stay close to the constituents of the 16th District. 

“I commuted across the country every single week for 32 years,” she said. “I did that because I understood, from the depths of myself, that you really cannot represent people well unless you’re with them.” 

It’s a unique district, filled with innovation and entrepreneurial spirit — and above all, good people, Eshoo said. 

“I’m so grateful to my constituents, I’ve seen their goodness and decency over and over and over and over again. It always brings tears to my eyes,” she said. “That’s there in our people. So I am hopeful.”