‘Experience’ is byword of campaign

For U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, the Democratic primary against U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz drills down to experience.

The two Democrats both entered state politics in 1998, but Hanabusa rose through the leadership ranks to become state Senate president and, while in Congress, earned the respect of the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and the retired U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka as their choice for the Senate.

"It is also a matter of trust," said Hanabusa, 63. "Who do you trust? And who will be there for you to carry forward the values that you have?"

Gov. Neil Abercrombie thought Schatz, 41, his former lieutenant governor, was the better option to replace Inouye in December 2012 and build the foundation for the state’s political future.

Schatz is not campaigning to complete the final two years of Inouye’s six-year term on his potential, but his ability to perform today, leaving primary voters to sift through competing claims about which candidate has been more effective during the short time they have both served in Congress.

With history against Hanabusa — no incumbent U.S. senator, appointed or elected, has lost an election since statehood — the congresswoman contends that her record shows she is more prepared for the Senate and more apt than Schatz to have the courage to stand alone if necessary to protect Hawaii’s interests.

"The one thing that he has not shown himself capable of doing is to be able to take those tough stands and to lead," Hanabusa said. "And that’s what I believe to be a critical component of what we need. I’m definitely not a follower. I don’t go along to get along.

"And I definitely do not vote to make the leadership or anyone like that happy with me, per se. I really have always taken the position that I represent the people in Hawaii. And I’m not sure that Brian does that."

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, a Kaneohe Democrat who served with Hanabusa in the state Senate, said voters should look at which candidate has the best skill set to be effective.

"For myself there was no question in terms of Colleen’s ability and strength and reputation to be able to really take a hard look at what needed to be done and be able to deliver for Hawaii," she said. "To be able to put Hawaii’s needs first and foremost, and to make tough decisions and navigate rough waters, and to be able to bring it home.

"I think that’s really what it’s all about."

Tokuda said the primary is tough on Democrats who know both Hanabusa and Schatz. "You’re going to have friends against friends in this particular race," she said. "So I don’t think it was, for anyone, an easy decision, because whether it’s the candidates or the people around them, it’s a fight within the family."

Tokuda said age, gender and ethnicity were not factors for her, although for others they are fault lines. She said she did not make her own decision lightly, since Schatz, a young Democrat, is a contemporary.

"There is no learning curve for Colleen," she explained. "That’s the bottom line."

INDEPENDENCE OFTEN CITED

Hanabusa has impressed colleagues at the Legislature and in Congress as intelligent and capable, noted for her preparation and work ethic. Her drawback is an often maddening inability to concisely explain her policy stands. She frequently drifts into long, jargon-filled explanations that even sympathetic audiences find difficult to decode.

There is also a pragmatism to Hanabusa’s politics that makes her hard to place on the ideological spectrum — somewhere in the degrees left of center — and leaves her vulnerable to criticism from both conservative and liberal partisans.

Hanabusa’s rise to state Senate president, and the support she received from Inouye and other establishment figures, has led many progressives to consign her to the old guard of Hawaii politics. But people who have spent the most time around her, including some of her adversaries, describe her independence as among her most distinguishing qualities.

A polished labor attorney when she was first elected to the state Senate in 1998 — the same year Schatz was elected to the state House — Hanabusa immediately dived into the deep end on policy and the Senate’s factional politics.

Hanabusa was one of the instigators behind the defeat of Margery Bronster for a second term as state attorney general. Bronster had been praised by then-Gov. Ben Cayetano for her investigation into the Bishop Estate trust but was faulted by some senators for her management style and advocacy in legal opinions.

Hanabusa stood with Cayetano on civil-service reform at the expense of her relationships with public-sector labor unions. She led hearings on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Rice v. Cayetano, which held that Hawaiian-only voting rights for trustees of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs were unconstitutional. She helped lead an inquiry into the state’s adherence to a federal court order to improve special education at public schools.

Hanabusa sued Cayetano — and lost — over whether the governor properly followed the 10-day requirement under the state Constitution to notify the Legislature of potential vetoes, including a bill to provide a $75 million tax credit for a Ko Olina aquarium project by her ally, developer Jeff Stone. (The tax credit eventually was approved by the state, but an aquarium was never built.)

In 2002 four senators who had banded with Hanabusa, by then the Senate vice president, lost re-election in the primary, a rebuke that did not dampen her own drive.

Hanabusa unsuccessfully ran in a special election for Congress in January 2003, finishing a distant third behind then-U.S. Rep. Ed Case.

Back in the Senate, Hanabusa helped lead a probe into rampant crystal methamphetamine abuse in the islands and carved out policy and leadership territory as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee and Senate majority leader.

Hanabusa lost a second run for Congress in 2006, this time a narrow primary defeat to Mazie Hirono, with Schatz coming in sixth.

A few months later, Senate Democrats would choose Hanabusa as the first woman ever to lead a chamber of the Legislature as Senate president. She downplayed the historic moment and her own role as a women’s advocate, sensitive to the raw feelings after a long leadership struggle with former Senate President Robert Bunda.

"What I hope it does is send a message to all the young women growing up and the young girls that in fact, you know, anything is possible," she told reporters at the time.

As Senate president, Hanabusa sought to lead by consensus but often struggled, like Bunda had, to develop a unified message to contrast with then-Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican. Hanabusa also frustrated some gay-rights and progressive activists by not moving quickly enough on civil unions, which, when a bill finally became law in 2011, set the groundwork for the state’s eventual approval of marriage equality last year.

Hanabusa once said her job as Senate president was to make the Senate shine, not for her to grandstand. "My job is for the Senate to come out looking as good as it can in these difficult times," she said in 2010.

A ‘MINORITY IN A MINORITY’

Despite her leadership stature as Senate president, and the backing from Inouye, Akaka, the local party’s establishment and organized labor, Hanabusa was the underdog in a May 2010 special election for the House seat left vacant when Abercrombie ran for governor. National Democrats, fearing Hanabusa and Case would split the Democratic vote and throw the election to Charles Djou, a Republican, tried to help Case.

But Inouye, still sore over Case’s unsuccessful primary challenge to Akaka in 2006, would not bend to national pressure. A late push, driven by labor unions, helped Hanabusa finish second to Djou, who won the election to fill out Abercrombie’s term with a plurality.

Later that year, Case opted out of a primary battle with Hanabusa, enabling Democrats to unify behind her when she toppled Djou in the general election in November 2010.

Hanabusa beat Djou in a rematch in 2012.

In Congress, Hanabusa has encountered a political climate that is the exact opposite of Hawaii’s. Republicans control the U.S. House with a comfortable enough majority to force Democrats into the margins. Individual lawmakers in the House lack the procedural weapons that senators have at their discretion, like the filibuster, so life in the minority can be constricting.

Both Hanabusa and Schatz are asking voters to judge them on their effectiveness while in Congress, but with Hanabusa in the minority since 2011, and Schatz in office for just 18 months, their individual accomplishments are limited.

Hanabusa, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said she is proudest of her contribution to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015. The bill includes training, construction and research improvements for the military facilities in Hawaii that, along with tourism, form the backbone of the state’s economy.

One provision of the bill, now before the Senate, would expand the U.S. Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island to include a runway that could handle C-17 transport planes and the return of one of the former Hawaii Superferry catamarans to shuttle troops from Oahu.

The congresswoman has placed the possible expansion at Pohakuloa in the context of the United States’ military pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.

Some in Hawaii had worried the state would lose influence on the House Armed Services Committee with Hanabusa’s departure. But U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who serves in the Hawaii Army National Guard, was assigned to the committee in April.

While Hanabusa has given her unqualified support to the military in Hawaii, as Inouye did, she has been among the most outspoken against the use of U.S. military force in conflagrations in Iraq and Syria. Progressives have tried to pigeonhole the congresswoman as part of the centrist New Democrat Coalition — not blue enough for Democratic Hawaii — but her anti-war rhetoric has been sharper than that of Schatz and many others on the left.

Hanabusa, as a Japanese-American woman and a Democrat, describes herself as a "minority in a minority" in the GOP-led House. But she believes the experience, combined with her time in leadership in the state Senate, separates her from Schatz.

"I want voters to look at the fact that I have been able to do what I’ve been able to do as a minority in a minority situation," she said.

DOWNPLAYING SENIORITY ISSUE

Inouye’s 49 years, 11 months and 15 days in the Senate, the second-longest tenure in U.S. history, conditioned Hawaii voters to appreciate the value of seniority. Yet neither Hanabusa nor Schatz has made seniority a significant issue in their campaigns.

Inouye and, to a lesser extent, Akaka, who served in the Senate for 20 years, were exceptions.

The average length of service in the Senate at the start of the 113th Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service, was 10.2 years, or about 1.7 terms. Just 16 of the 100 senators have served for two decades or longer.

Hanabusa said presuming anyone will serve beyond one term insults voters "because you’ve got to earn it. You’ve got to earn it with every election," she said. "I don’t think that’s something that people should assume, that once you go there that you’re going to be able to serve there for 50 years like Sen. Inouye."

But seniority is still relevant in the Senate, as are relationships.

Hanabusa has earned endorsements from Inouye, Akaka, Cayetano, former Gov. George Ariyoshi and emerging national figures such as U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., the University of Hawaii and McKinley High School graduate wounded while serving with the Army in Iraq.

But the congresswoman has not cracked the Senate, where Senate Democrats have enveloped Schatz.

Akaka said some of his former colleagues in the Senate might not know Hanabusa that well. "I’m supporting her because I think of her as a proven leader and a visionary legislator," he said.

INOUYE CASTS A LONG SHADOW

When Abercrombie appointed Schatz to replace Inouye, the governor cited his potential for the future but also said Hawaii would benefit by Hanabusa building her time on a House Armed Services Committee vital to the state’s military interests. Other Democrats have said that if Hanabusa was the one selected, Djou, a Republican, would likely have won a special election to replace her in Congress.

But none of these explanations softened the blow for many of Inouye’s loyalists, who viewed Abercrombie’s choice as a slap at the late senator’s legacy.

While some in Hanabusa’s orbit would prefer that Inouye’s silhouette not be as pronounced in the campaign, his presence is inescapable. Irene Hirano Inouye, the senator’s widow, is a prominent Hanabusa supporter. Walter Dods, the retired banker and Inouye confidant, is an important adviser.

Behind the scenes, Jennifer Sabas, Inouye’s former chief of staff, and other former aides have prominent roles and often appear at events in the signature black-and-gold "Dan" shirts from the senator’s old triumphs. (The colors are a tribute to McKinley High School, Inouye’s alma mater.)

Some of Schatz’s supporters say the Inouye theme leaves the uncomfortable impression that Hanabusa is entitled. Others see it as a cynical appeal by an old guard –that prospered politically and financially with Inouye in the Senate — to keep its clutch on power.

"No, I do not believe I’m entitled to it," Hanabusa said. "I feel that I have to earn it and I have to convince the people of Hawaii that I am the better person for the position."