U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono has decided to stay put in her East Honolulu home located outside the rural district she represents, abandoning the idea that she would eventually move into her district.

Hirono, a Democrat elected in 2006 to represent the neighbor islands and rural Oahu, told The Associated Press that she’ll continue to live with her family rather than find a new residence inside her district, as U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa did this month.

Hirono says she lives with her husband and her 86-year-old mother, and uprooting her mother from familiar surroundings to a new home would be too disruptive.

Hirono said during her 2006 campaign for Congress that if elected, she would likely move into the district she was running for.

Hirono announced that she will run for the U.S. Senate, a state-wide race, in 2012.