HONOLULU — Former U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who was the first woman to serve as president of the Hawaii State Senate, has died. She was 74 years old.
Hanabusa died early Friday after a five-month battle with cancer, said Mike Formby, her friend and former chief of staff in the US House of Representatives.
In announcing her death on Friday, Gov. Josh Green ordered the U.S. and Hawaiian flags to be flown at half-staff until sunrise on Monday.
Greene said she “broke barriers” as the first woman to serve as state Senate president and “spent decades advocating for her community with strength, determination and heart.” “Her legacy of leadership and public service will continue to inspire generations to come.”
Hanabusa was a lawyer who grew up in Waiana, on the west side of Oahu, where her family ran an auto service station.
She represented the Waianae Coast and Leeward Oahu as a state senator from 1999-2010.
She was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives when U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye died in 2012. Inouye had sent then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a handwritten letter dated the day of his death, in which he says he would like Hanabusa to succeed him, calling it his “last wish.”
But Abercrombie appointed then-Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz to fill the Senate seat.
Hanabusa later gave up her seat to run for the Senate, hoping to fulfill Inoue’s dying wish.
“Brian was not elected, he was appointed,” she said at the time. “And I don’t think people have really had the opportunity to think about who they want to represent them in the United States Senate.”
I lost it 2014 elections By less than a percentage point for Schatz.
She returned to Washington in 2016 after her restoration The seat she previously held.
At the time, she expressed her disappointment with President Donald Trump’s victory.
“I didn’t expect the rest of the nation to vote so much,” Hanabusa said shortly after her election results were announced. “It’s just a statement about how they feel. And when you think about the things he’s said and stood for, it should give everyone a reason to stop and think, ‘What are we saying to the world, what are we saying to each other?’
She later gave up her seat to run for governor but lost to former Governor David Ige in the election Democratic primaries In 2018.
In 2021, Honolulu’s mayor appointed Hanabusa to the board of the city’s long-awaited rail line that went way over budget.
Formby, who now serves as administrative director in the Honolulu Mayor’s Office, said she is survived by her husband, John Souza, and her two beloved dogs named Franny and Popper.