Colleen Hanabusa

Colleen Hanabusa represented Hawaii's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. She had not run for re-election in 2014, instead choosing to run for the U.S. Senate but losing that race in a close primary. In November 2016, she won a special election to fill the remaining term of the late Rep. Mark Takai, who had won her old seat in the 1st District but passed away in July 2016, and also won the general election for that seat. Hanabusa ran for governor in 2018, losing in the primary.

Hanabusa was born May 4, 1951, and grew up in Wai'anae, Hawaii. In 1973, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She received her Master of Arts in sociology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1975, and completed her Juris Doctorate in 1977 at William S. Richardson School of Law.

In 1998, Hanabusa was elected into Hawaii's State Senate and served as Hawaii's 21st District State Senator from 1998 to 2010. While serving in the Senate, she was elected as the Senate majority leader and in November 2006 was elected as the president of the Senate, becoming Hawaii's first woman president of the state Senate and the country's first woman of color to serve as president of a state senate.

For information on Hanabusa's policy subject areas, committee appointments and sponsored/co-sponsored legislation during her time in the U.S. House of Representatives, please visit her profile on https://www.congress.gov.

Sources:

Ballotpedia (n.d.). Colleen Hanabusa. Retrieved on November 21 2022, from https://ballotpedia.org/Colleen_Hanabusa