Colleen Hanabusa, first woman to be president of Hawaii state senate, dies aged 74 | Hawaii
Former U.S. Representative Colleen Hanabusa, the first woman to lead the Hawaii State Senate, has died. He was 74 years old.
Hanabusa died early Friday after a five-month battle with cancer, said his friend and former chief of staff to the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Formby.
Announcing her death Friday, Gov. Josh Green ordered U.S. and Hawaiian flags flown at half-staff until sunrise Monday.
Green said she “broke down barriers” as the first female president of the state Senate and “spent decades defending her community with strength, determination and heart.” “His legacy of leadership and public service will continue to inspire future generations.”
Hanabusa was a lawyer who grew up in Waianae on Oahu’s west side, where his family ran an auto service station.
As a member of the state Senate from 1999 to 2010, he represented Waianae Beach and Leeward Oahu.
U.S. senator Daniel Inouye was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives when he died in 2012. Inouye sent a hand-signed letter to then-governor Neil Abercrombie, dated the day he died, stating that he wanted Hanabusa to replace him and describing it as his “last wish.”
However, Abercrombie appointed then-Governor Brian Schatz to fill the Senate seat.
Hanabusa later gave up his seat to run for the Senate, hoping to fulfill Inouye’s dying wish.
“Brian was not elected, he was appointed,” he said at the time. “And I don’t think people have the opportunity to decide who they want to represent them in the United States Senate.”
He lost the 2014 election to Schatz by less than a percentage point.
He returned to Washington in 2016 after regaining the seat he previously held.
At the time, he expressed disappointment with Donald Trump’s victory.
“I didn’t expect the rest of the nation to vote as strongly as they did,” Hanabusa said shortly after his own election results were announced. “It’s just an expression of how they feel. And when you think about what he said and what he represented, you have to give everyone a reason to stop and think: ‘What are we saying to the world, what are we saying to each other?'”
He later gave up his seat to run for governor but lost to former governor David Ige in the 2018 Democratic primary.
In 2021, Honolulu’s mayor appointed Hanabusa to the board of directors of the city’s long-delayed and vastly overbudget rail line.
Formby, who now serves as chief executive of the Honolulu mayor’s office, said she is survived by her husband, John Souza, and her beloved dogs named Frannie and Pupper.
