Former Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, a Hawaii Democrat who made history as the first woman president of the Hawaii state Senate before serving four terms in the U.S. House, died on March 5 after a battle with cancer. Hanabusa was 74.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green ordered flags at half mast, praising Hanabusa in a statement as a “fierce advocate for Hawaiʻi’s working families, Native Hawaiian communities and the people of the Pacific.”
Hanabusa grew up on an old sugar plantation in Wai’anae and worked in her family’s Chevron gas station. She graduated from law school at the University of Hawaii and focused on labor law before her political career. She won election to the state Senate in 1998 and became Senate president in 2007, the first woman to lead either chamber in the Hawaii Legislature.
It took Hanabusa four tries before she was elected to the House in 2010. She would come to hold a seat on the Armed Services Committee, valuable to a state where military interests drive much of the local economy. A critic of the Iraq War, Hanabusa pushed for requiring new congressional approval for military intervention.
When her mentor, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, died during his ninth term in 2012, he requested in a deathbed letter to then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie that Hanabusa be his successor. Abercrombie instead chose Brian Schatz, his lieutenant governor, citing a desire for Schatz and Hanabusa to gain seniority in different chambers. Hanabusa later challenged Schatz in the 2014 primary but lost by 1,782 votes.
She returned to the House in a 2016 special election to fill a vacancy left by the death of Rep. Mark Takai. She made her exit from Congress two years later with an unsuccessful bid for governor.
Amid news of her passing, statements celebrating Hanabusa’s life and career poured in from members of Hawaii’s all-Democrat congressional delegation.
“She stood by me during some of my toughest battles; as a young mother in the chamber, she never once questioned that I could both lead and nurture,” said Rep. Jill N. Tokuda.
Rep. Ed Case, Hanabusa’s successor in the 1st District, remembered her as “one of our most talented, committed and accomplished public servants.”
Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, who served in the House alongside Hanabusa for roughly five years before she was elected to the Senate, commemorated their work together, particularly on issues affecting Native Hawaiians. Hanabusa was once the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs.
Similarly, Schatz, who formerly chaired the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, remembered Hanabusa for her dedication to the state.
“Colleen Hanabusa brought toughness, integrity, and deep aloha for Hawai‘i to everything she did,” Schatz said.
