Is the age of candidates a fair issue in an election? It is for an election to the U.S. Senate, where seniority based on years of service is the most important currency for attaining power and getting federal resources for the home state.
And as Hawaii moves toward replacing our 87-year-old Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye without taking age into account, we could be setting ourselves up for a generation of impotence in the upper chamber of Congress.
Years of service mean everything in the Senate for committee assignments, chairmanships and other leadership positions that affect a senator’s ability to deliver for constituents.
To see its significance, we only need look at the career paths of Inouye and Akaka.
Inouye entered the Senate on Jan. 3, 1963, at the age of 38. His 49 years of service are the second longest in history, and he’ll become the longest serving if he finishes his current term.
The long service has made him chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee and president pro tempore — third in line to the presidency. He brings so much federal money to Hawaii that he’s considered his own leg of the economy.
Akaka, who is retiring this year, was sworn in on May 16, 1990, at 65. He’s amassed only enough seniority to chair a third-tier committee, Indian Affairs, and for a decade hasn’t gotten the courtesy of a floor vote on his "Akaka Bill" for Native Hawaiian recognition.
His lack of clout hasn’t mattered with Inouye there to do Hawaii’s heavy lifting, but Akaka’s successor could become Hawaii’s senior senator and heavy lifter if Inouye retires when his term ends in 2016.
Rep. Mazie Hirono, who is supported by both senators to succeed Akaka and leads Democratic rival Ed Case and Republican Linda Lingle in most polls, would be 65 when she’s sworn in — the same age Akaka was.
She’d have four years of seniority when she became Hawaii’s senior senator and relatively few years to build seniority before hitting retirement herself.
Case, 59, and Lingle, 58, also aren’t young for beginning senators. For practical purposes, they’d be able to build one six-year term more seniority than Hirono if all served to the same age.
The age problem persists when we look at who might replace Inouye.
If Rep. Colleen Hanabusa and Mufi Hannemann hold their leads in the polls and claim Hawaii’s U.S. House seats, they’d be the likely front-runners for Inouye’s seat.
Hanabusa, now 60, would be 65 when she’s sworn in to the Senate, and Hannemann, now 57, would be 62.
It’s a delicate issue but one voters must consider unless they’re comfortable with Hawaii enduring a long stretch of relative invisibility in the U.S. Senate.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
