Memorial service for the late California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher

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A memorial service was held Monday morning in Washington, D.C., for the late Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California, a trailblazer for women in the world of finance who served in congress for more than a decade before joining the Obama Administration and who was a longtime cancer survivor.

She died of complications from pneumonia last month at athe age of 67.


"Ellen was brilliant she was warm she was loyal to her country her family and her friends and she had a wonderful sense of humor," Senator Diane Feinstein said at the service. "I saw this constantly over a glass of wine and dinner in Washington but she was always ready with something to make friends smile and even laugh."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was there too. She remembered that after the 2016 election, Tauscher "became one of my most trusted confidants to work through the consequences of that loss and the ongoing challenges facing the country. When I think of her I think of that line from the Beatles song, 'The Two of Us,' you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches ahead."  

Tauscher, a Democrat, worked on Wall Street before being elected to the House in 1996 from a district that included much of Contra Costa County as well as parts of Alameda, Solano and Sacramento counties. She unseated Rep. Bill Baker, the last Republican to represent a Bay Area-centered House district.

Tauscher was the youngest woman and one of the first women to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

She resigned in 2009 during her 7th term in the House, when President Barack Obama appointed her to the State Department. There, she became an undersecretary, where she helped lead negotiations with Russia over the 2010 New START treaty, the first major arms control agreement between the two powers in almost two decades.

She worked on the treaty even after being diagnosed with stage three esophageal cancer in 2010.

Tauscher was most recently on the University of California Board of Regents and in 2018, became the chair of the Board of Governors for Los Alamos National Security and Lawrence Livermore National Security.