I am sorry to report that Grant Ujifusa, my longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, died last month after a long and painful illness. His obituary in the New York Times, by Trip Gabriel, gives a fine account of his work on securing passage and President Ronald Reagan’s signature on the law for redress to Japanese Americans imprisoned in detention camps during World War II. It was the one issue on which he lobbied members of Congress and one on which he played a key role in achieving a policy outcome that we considered worthy.

I should add that neither he nor his family members were eligible for redress payments since the internment order applied only to Japanese Americans in the three West Coast states. Grant grew up in Worland, Wyoming, on his parents’ sugar beet farm. He always had fond memories of Worland, where he excelled academically in high school and was quarterback on the high school football team. Dick Cheney, two years older and from nearby Casper (nearby by Wyoming standards — they’re 163 miles apart), has told me more than once that he remembers Grant from the days they played against each other.