united against the bill. It is the Diet representatives who answer to the voice of the region." Following the breakup of the lower house, at the first election strategy meeting on August 12 the association officially decided to support postal reform opponents Noda, Takao Fujii, and Keiji Furuya, and announced that association members who supported the candidates fielded by LDP headquarters would be disposed of. Koizumi kept Noda and other privatization opponents off of the LDP ticket. He sent Yukari Sato as an "assassin" candidate against Noda. Running as an independent, Noda won the election in what was described in the press as a war between two "madonna" candidates. Noda later returned to the LDP. Following the snap elections in which Koizumi won a mandate on privatization with the LDP gaining an overwhelming majority, Noda changed her stance. Noting that "...I understand (the LDP's success in the Sept. 11 House of Representatives election) was the voice of the people saying that privatization had to be sped up..." she voiced her intention to vote for the proposal. Women retaining their name after marriage As chair of the Ruling Party Female Diet Member Policy Proposal Committee's "Project Team on the System to Optionally Keep Separate Names After Marriage", on November 5, 2001, after receiving the agreement of Hiromu Nonaka, Kōichi Katoo, Yūko Obuchi and 45 others (including Noda), the proposal for the System to Optionally Keep Separate Names After Marriage was submitted. An LDP "Committee to Realize the Right To Keep Separate Names in Exceptional Cases" was formed and gained great attention. This was because Sadanori Yamanaka, who stood in opposition with the comment "As long as I live I will never "realize" this (law)", was made chief advisor. A proposal was submitted by the committee on July 24, 2002. On February 22, 2005, she took part in a non-partisan Diet member "Emergency Diet Meeting on the Right To Keep Separate Names". Out of concern that it might not gain unanimous agreement of all party members as generally required, she said that she was "tempted to pushing the bill as a non-partisan proposal". Declining birthrate issue Despite having taken eight external fertilization treatments in three years and undergoing infertility treatment while a Diet member, she turned her attention to the declining birthrate issue. In the fall of 2002 she expressed her intention to especially put energy into the issue. In regards to