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.
