Nelson Doi, a self-acknowledged political maverick, was remembered Tuesday as among the best political orators in Hawaii after World War II and a staunch supporter of the economically underprivileged.
Throughout his career as a state senator, lieutenant governor and judge, Doi’s speeches expressed criticism without personally cutting remarks, recalled Tom Coffman, author of a landmark book about Hawaii politics, "To Catch a Wave."
"Nelson was a class act," Coffman said Tuesday. "He was a tremendously convincing orator. He was a fantastic speaker."
Doi, who served as lieutenant governor from 1974 to 1978 with Gov. George Ariyoshi, died Saturday at his home in Waimea, Hawaii island, his family said. He was 93.
In a February 2009 interview with the community newspaper Hamakua Times, Doi, who earned a reputation as a maverick politician who wouldn’t hesitate to cross party lines when a matter "served the people," said, "I fought all the time for what was the right thing to do."
Coffman said Doi was a well-known political figure during the early rise of the Democratic Party in Hawaii.
After participating in the 1950 Constitutional Convention, which laid the groundwork for statehood, Doi became an effective legislator, Coffman said. Doi ran for lieutenant governor in 1974 and won on the Democratic ticket with Ariyoshi, making the pair the first Japanese-Americans to hold the offices of governor and lieutenant governor.
Royce Higa, Doi’s campaign manager in an unsuccessful 1978 bid to be elected Honolulu mayor, said Doi supported efforts to help the handicapped and economically underprivileged. "People trusted him, and he was able to work with people," Higa recalled.
Doi summed up his political career in his typical, straight-talking style in the Hamakua Times article: "I’ve done battle with union, business and party leaders because my obligation is to the people. The party is only an instrument, a tool for doing a good job. It’s about serving the people."
Doi credited many of his values to his father, Tadaichi Doi, founder of the former T. Doi Store in Kawaihae. An independent thinker, the senior Doi installed a strong work ethic in his six sons and told Nelson, "You have to fight for your people," according to the Hamakua Times interview.
Born in Pahoa, Hawaii island, on New Year’s Day in 1922, Doi graduated from Honokaa High School and was student body president at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, according to an obituary submitted by his family. He graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School and went on to serve as a Hawaii County deputy county attorney.
In 1954 he was part of the historic election that swept Democrats into power and control of the Territorial Legislature. Doi won a seat in the Senate, where he served for 14 years and became Senate president.
Doi’s family said he was an advocate in the Senate for education and agriculture, and helped draft legislation that produced the first study of Hawaii as a tourist destination.
Doi was appointed in 1969 as circuit judge, a position that he held on Hawaii island until 1974, when he left the bench to run for lieutenant governor.
During his term as lieutenant governor, Doi was an advocate for reform of corrections and prevention of juvenile delinquency. He also sponsored a program of counseling for the children of divorced parents, which attracted national attention, his family said.
After the unsuccessful bid for mayor of Honolulu in 1978, Doi and his wife, Eiko, spent a year in Japan as English teachers, his family said. Doi went on to serve on the High Court of the Marshall Islands, then a U.S. territory, in 1985.
He returned to Hawaii island and helped initiate development of the Mauna Lea Beach Hotel in South Kohala and lobbied the Legislature for money for the public-private partnership that built the North Hawaii Community Hospital, his family said.
Doi is survived by son Dr. David T. Doi of Kamuela; daughter Katherine A. Doi of Palo Alto, Calif.; and four grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers or monetary gifts, donations may be made to the North Hawaii Hospice, "in Memory of Nelson Doi," 65-1328 Kawaihae Road, Kamuela, HI 96743.
Services are pending.
