Colleen Hanabusa
Colleen Wakako Hanabusa is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2015 and again from 2016 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she ran for her party's nomination for governor of Hawaii in 2018, challenging and losing to incumbent and fellow Democrat David Ige.
Before her election to the United States House of Representatives, Hanabusa was a member of the Hawaii Senate. She served as Senate Majority Leader before being elected Hawaii's first female President of the Senate in 2007. On August 24, 2011, she announced her intention to run for election to Congress. On December 17, 2012, after the death of U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, it was announced that Inouye had sent a letter shortly before his death to Governor Neil Abercrombie, stating his desire that Hanabusa be appointed to the seat. Abercrombie decided against appointing Hanabusa and selected Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz instead. Hanabusa challenged Schatz in the Democratic primary for the 2014 special election, but narrowly lost.
In 2016, Hanabusa announced her intention to run in the 1st congressional district special election to fill the remaining term of Representative Mark Takai, who died in July 2016; she won the Democratic primary for the race on August 13. On November 8, 2016, Hanabusa won the special election for the remainder of Takai's term and also won election to a full term; although her seniority resumed immediately, she needed to be sworn in to perform congressional duties, and she took the oath on November 14. In 2017, Hanabusa announced her decision to run for the governorship of Hawaii in 2018 rather than reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. She lost to incumbent Democratic governor David Ige in the primary, and Ige was reelected to a second term. In February 2020, Hanabusa announced her campaign for Mayor of Honolulu in 2020. She placed third in the nonpartisan blanket primary.
Early life and education
A fourth-generation American of Japanese ancestry, Hanabusa grew up in Waianae with her two younger brothers, her parents, and her grandparents. Her parents, Isao and June, owned a gas station. Her maternal grandfather was confined at the Honouliuli Internment Camp on Oahu during World War II. In 1969 she graduated from St. Andrew's Priory. She received a B.A. in economics and sociology in 1973 and an M.A. in sociology in 1975 from the University of Hawaiʻi and in 1977 received a J.D. from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.Law career
Hanabusa is a labor lawyer with almost 30 years of experience, and a corporate officer in a family-run corporation. She has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, Woodward and White, Inc., served as a delegate to the Hawai`i State Judicial Conference, and was noted in Honolulu Magazine as one of Hawai`i's A+ Attorneys in 1993 and subsequent years.Hawaii Senate
In November 1998 Hanabusa was elected the state senator from the 21st District. The 21st District includes Wai'anae, where her family has resided for four generations, as well as Ko Olina, Kahe Point, Nanakuli, Ma'ili, Makaha, Makua and Ka'ena Point.One of Hanabusa's first acts upon being elected was to organize senators to vote against the second-term confirmation of Hawaii Attorney General Margery Bronster.
Hanabusa served as Senate Majority Leader before being elected the first woman president of the Senate in 2006, making her the first Asian American woman to preside over a state legislative chamber in the United States. In 2003 she was named one of Hawaii's "top ten political power brokers", along with the state's governor and two U.S. senators, by Hawaii Business Magazine.
Hanabusa ran unsuccessfully in a special election held in January 2003 to replace the late Patsy T. Mink as U.S. Representative from Hawai'i's 2nd congressional district, losing to Ed Case, a Blue Dog Democrat. In 2006 she ran for the same seat after Case retired to unsuccessfully challenge Senator Daniel Akaka in the Democratic primary. Hanabusa was again unsuccessful, losing in the Democratic primary to former Lieutenant Governor Mazie Hirono by 844 votes.
Leadership positions
- Serving the Leeward Coast as state senator since 1998
- State senate president since 2007
- State senate majority leader since 2007
- Chair, Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee
- Co-chair, Joint Senate House Task Force on Ice and Drug Abatement
- Senate's first statewide hearings on Rice v. Cayetano
- United States Supreme Court decision co-chair, Joint Senate House Investigative Committee: Felix Consent Decree
- 2001 Vice chair, Senate Ways and Means Committee
- Vice president, state senate
- Chair, Senate Committee on Water, Land, and Hawaiian Affairs
Key legislation introduced
- 3 R's program for repair and maintenance of schools
- Repeal of the Van Cam Law
- Tax credit to enable construction and jobs at Ko Olina
- Bill to reform election contributions
- Bill to pay the awards of the Individual Rights Panel-DHHL
- Bill to require community notice prior to establishing a halfway house
- Bill for a ceded land inventory Education Initiatives
Ko Olina tax credits
Within months, Hanabusa's then-fiancé John Souza received a preferential deal in purchasing one of Stone's homes in Ko Olina. In February 2005, less than two years after Souza bought the home, he sold it for a $421,000 profit, according to real estate records. Souza and Hanabusa, who were engaged at the time and married in 2008, then bought a $1 million home in another Ko Olina subdivision developed by Centex Homes of Texas.
The Ko Olina tax-credit legislation, intended to promote development of a "world-class" aquarium at the resort, expired after plans for the aquarium were abandoned. Ko Olina Resort eventually returned the tax credit, but the Lingle Administration and Hanabusa disagreed on how to use the returned funds.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2010
Hanabusa ran unsuccessfully in the May 22, 2010, special election to serve out the remaining months of former representative Neil Abercrombie's term; then-City Councilman Charles Djou defeated her without winning a majority of the votes under the rules of the all-party election that split the Democratic vote between Hanabusa and rival Ed Case, a moderate Democrat.U.S. Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka supported Hanabusa's special election campaign and backed her again in the September primary. Some in the national Democratic Party indicated a preference for Case, who previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives before an unsuccessful U.S. Senate primary challenge to Akaka in 2006. The national Democratic leadership remained officially neutral.
On May 30, 2010, Case, citing his third-place showing in the special election and to avoid a rift among Democrats that could lead to Djou's winning the November election, announced his withdrawal from the race and gave his support to Hanabusa. That made Hanabusa the top Democratic candidate in the September party primary, which she won. Hanabusa subsequently challenged Djou for the same seat and on November 2 won the general election, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent.
2012
Although there was some speculation that she would run to succeed retiring senator Daniel Akaka, Hanabusa opted to run for reelection to Congress. She faced Djou again, and defeated him 55% to 45%.2014
On December 17, 2012, the second-longest serving U.S. Senator in history, Daniel Inouye, who had represented the state of Hawaii since it became a state in 1959, died of respiratory complications. Shortly before his death, Inouye sent Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie a letter requesting that Hanabusa be appointed to his seat for the remainder of his term. Hanabusa submitted her name for consideration to the Democratic Party of Hawaii, which then included her on a list of three candidates for Abercrombie's consideration. Abercrombie chose Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii Brian Schatz. On December 26, 2012, Schatz was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden. On May 2, 2013, Hanabusa announced she would challenge Schatz in the 2014 Democratic primary. She said "Brian was not elected. He was appointed, and I don't think the people have really had an opportunity to weigh in on who they want to represent them in the United States Senate."In May, Hanabusa was endorsed by Inouye's widow, Irene, who said, "Shortly after she was elected president of the Hawaii State Senate, Dan recognized that Colleen was more than capable of succeeding him and he began to mentor her. His last wish was that Colleen serve out his term because he was confident in her ability to step into the Senate and immediately help Hawaii." Hanabusa's campaign hired many of Inouye's staffers. Polling throughout the campaign was controversially mixed, with each campaign releasing different poll results. In the end, Schatz won narrowly, with 115,401 votes to Hanabusa's 113,632.