Colleen Hanabusa

• 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[4]

• 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[4]

In 2002, while in the State Legislature, Hanabusa emerged as the leading advocate for legislation authorizing $75 million in tax credits for Ko Olina Resort, a move she declared necessary to spur development for the Leeward area, but which others saw as a reward for a close associate and political backer, Ko Olina developer Jeff Stone. When Governor Ben Cayetano vetoed the tax credit bill, Hanabusa took the unprecedented step of suing to overturn the veto.[18][19]

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.[20]

When State Representative Glenn Wakai introduced legislation to prevent the eating of dogs and cats, Hanabusa refused to hold hearings on it in the State Senate Judiciary Committee, preventing it from passing.[21]

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.[22]

While in Congress, Hanabusa was called a "loan shark" by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington for abusing her position to pay herself excessive interest to settling her campaign debt. Hanabusa's spokesperson said these payments were merely repayment of a bank loan.[23]

In January 2013 Hanabusa appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, where she criticized a derogatory comment O'Reilly made toward Asians. O'Reilly condemned her for not having seen the program in which he made his statement, even though his comment was still widely considered offensive. O'Reilly had previously commented on various social issues in Hawaii.[24]

Hanabusa at the Aloha Floral Parade in 2010

After House GOP leader John Boehner pledged to give incumbent Congressman Charles Djou a seat on the Appropriations Committee, Senator Daniel Inouye said that Democrats would also name Hanabusa to Appropriations.[25] However, House Democratic leadership instead appointed her to the Armed Services and Natural Resources committees.[26]

Hanabusa was the third Buddhist to join the United States Congress, preceded by Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.[27] Her election made Hawaii the only state with a majority non-Christian House delegation. She was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.[28]

She left the House at the end of the 113th Congress to run for US Senate in 2014, losing in the primary. After regaining the seat in 2016, she chose to run in the Democratic primary for governor of Hawaii in 2018, leaving the House again after the 115th Congress.

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.[29][30]

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.[31][32]

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.[33] That made Hanabusa the top Democratic candidate in the September party primary, which she won.[34] Hanabusa subsequently challenged Djou for the same seat and on November 2 won the general election, 53.2 percent to 46.8 percent.[2][35][36]

Although there was some speculation that she would run to succeed retiring Senator Daniel Akaka, Hanabusa opted to run for reelection to Congress.[5] She faced Djou again, and defeated him with 54.6 percent of the vote.

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.[37] 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,[38] which then included her on a list of three candidates for Abercrombie's consideration.[6][7][39] Abercrombie chose Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii Brian Schatz.[8][40] 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."[41]

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."[42] Hanabusa's campaign hired many of Inouye's staffers.[43] Polling throughout the campaign was controversially mixed, with each campaign releasing different poll results.[44] In the end, Schatz won narrowly, with 115,401 votes to Hanabusa's 113,632.

Hanabusa being sworn in by Speaker Paul Ryan

In May 2016 Hanabusa's successor in the House, Mark Takai, announced he was not running for reelection that year due to pancreatic cancer. Hanabusa subsequently announced that she would once again run for the seat.[45] Prior to his July 20, 2016, death, Takai endorsed Hanabusa to succeed him.[46] Two weeks after his death, on August 3, Hanabusa announced that she would also run in the special election on November 8, 2016, the same date as the regularly scheduled election, to finish Takai's term in the 114th United States Congress.[47] On August 13 she easily won the Democratic primary for the general election.[48] On October 24 Hanabusa resigned as Chair of the HART Board.[49] She won both the special and general elections with more than 60 percent of the vote.

As a Representative, Hanabusa sponsored 14 bills, including:[50]

• H.R. 3320, a bill to increase funds for grants to U.S. owned Pacific islands to offset costs resulting from the residency of people from a Compact of Free Association (COFA) member-state, introduced November 2, 2011. Hanabusa introduced a similar bill, H.R. 1222, in the 113th Congress.

• H.R. 912, a bill to allow for Medicaid to provide care to people lawfully residing in a U.S. owned Pacific island who are from a COFA member-state, introduced February 28, 2013
• H.R. 2225, a bill to change Memorial Day from the last Monday in May to its previous date of May 30, introduced June 3, 2013

In addition to the bills listed above, Hanabusa sponsored several bills relating to Filipino World War II veterans that would, among other things, recognize their efforts in World War II and provide veteran benefits to them.

• House Armed Services Committee (HASC)
  • Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces
  • Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
• House Committee on Natural Resources
  • Subcommittee on Federal Lands (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Indian Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs
• House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Environment

• Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus[51]