Year begins for Hawai‘i’s new congressional delegation

LIHU‘E — A renewed Hawai‘i congressional delegation is hitting the ground running this week in Washington, D.C., in the aftermath of Congress’ last-minute bi-partisan compromise on New Year’s Day to avert the fiscal cliff.

Today, Sen.-elect Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai‘i, Rep.-elect Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawai‘i, and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawai‘i, will be sworn in. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawai‘i, was sworn in on Dec. 27.

All but Hanabusa are starting a new job — and Hanabusa has been in Washington for two years. While on paper the majority of Hawai‘i’s delegation are juniors, all members possess considerable public service experience.

“One of my top priorities will be helping to ensure that Hawai‘i’s new Congressional delegation continues to provide the effective service that Sen. Inouye and Sen. Akaka contributed for so long,” Hanabusa said Wednesday. “Hawai‘i and our nation face continuing challenges in a changing world, and I will use my experience and relationships with my colleagues for the benefit of our state.”

Hirono is replacing Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai‘i, who is retiring today after 36 years of public service — 22 as a U.S. senator and 14 as a U.S. representative. Prior to that, she served six years in the U.S. House, from 2006 to 2012, representing Hawai‘i’s 2nd Congressional District.

Hirono’s experience in office, however, goes back to 1980, when she first was elected to the state House of Representatives. She served there until being elected as Hawai‘i’s lieutenant governor under Gov. Ben Cayetano, a position she held from 1994 to 2002.

“We expect great things of Sen.-elect Mazie Hirono. She, like Sens. Inouye and Akaka, brings a lifetime of distinguished public service to this new role,” Abercrombie said in a Dec. 26 news release.

In 2002, Hirono lost a gubernatorial race to Linda Lingle, who went on serve as Hawai‘i governor until 2010. Hirono won her Senate seat in a face off against Lingle last November.

Replacing Hirono in the House, Gabbard is walking into the nation’s capitol for the first time as a working politician there. But she too is no first timer in public service.

Prior to being elected to the U.S. House last November — beating former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in arguably one of the most exciting congressional races ever in Hawai‘i — Gabbard had a eclectic history of public service spanning at least 10 years.

In 2002, at 21 years old, Gabbard won a seat at the state House, representing O‘ahu’s 42nd District (Waipahu, Honouliuli and Ewa Beach). In 2003, while still in office, she enlisted in the Hawai‘i National Guard. In 2004, she volunteered for combat tour in Iraq, and therefore declined to seek re-election.

Gabbard came back from Iraq in 2006, and worked for Akaka in Washington as a legislative aide until 2009, when she deployed again with the National Guard to the Middle East.

In 2010, back in Hawai‘i, Gabbard was elected to the Honolulu City Council. She served as a Honolulu councilwoman until August 2012, when she stepped out to run for the U.S. House. In the primary election last year, she trounced Hannemann with a 20 percent lead, after overcoming a 45-point deficit in the polls at the beginning of her bid for U.S. representative. In the general election, Gabbard easily beat her Republican opponent, homeless Kawika Crowley, to become the first American Samoan and Hindu member of Congress.

“Hawai‘i also awaits the dynamic promise of Congresswoman-elect Tulsi Gabbard, representing a new generation of leadership, rooted firmly in the timeless traditions of Hawai‘i,” Abercrombie said in the Dec. 26 release.

Schatz became U.S. Senator after being appointed on Dec. 26 by Abercrombie to replace Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawai‘i, the second longest ever serving member of the U.S. Senate. Inouye died Dec. 17, two weeks short of completing 50 years in the Senate.

“No one can fill Sen. Daniel K. Inouye’s shoes, but together, all of us, we can try to walk in his footsteps,” Schatz said a press conference shortly after his appointment last week.

Schatz’s experience includes eight years of service in the state’s capitol, and two years as second-in-command politician in Hawai‘i. He served in the state House from 1998 to 2006, when he ran for the U.S. House and came in sixth in the primary election for the Democratic ticket, won by Hirono.

From 2008 to 2010 he was chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i. In 2010 he started serving as lieutenant governor under Abercrombie, until his appointment last week.

Schatz was born in Michigan, but like President Barack Obama, he too attended the prestigious Punahou School in Honolulu.

Hanabusa is starting her second two-year term in the U.S. House, after being re-elected in November.

“It is an honor knowing that the voters of the 1st Congressional District have allowed me to continue my service in Congress,” Hanabusa said.

She was first elected to the U.S. House in 2010, beating incumbent Rep. Charles Djou, R-Hawai‘i, who served in the House only from May 22, 2010, to Jan. 3, 2011. Djou had won a special election in early 2010 to replace then-Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai‘i, who had stepped out to run for Hawai‘i governor.

Prior to serving in the U.S. House, Hanabusa served as a state senator from 1998 to 2010. In 2007, she became the 11th president of the state Senate, and the first woman ever to lead in Hawai‘i’s Capitol, including House and Senate.

Hanabusa is also an attorney who earned her degree in 1977 from the University of Hawai‘i’s William S. Richardson School of Law.

“The recent passage of a bill to address the fiscal cliff showed us again that collaboration is essential, but a commitment to core principles is irreplaceable,” Hanabusa said. “I plan to build on that experience in my second term.”

Senate ‘mini-school’

Every two years, following the elections, a new class of senators comes to the nation’s Capitol to assume the duties of U.S. senators. They take the oath of office in January, but the business of becoming a senator starts immediately after the election, states the Senate’s official website.

Each state, regardless of population, has two senators in Congress, so there are 100 senators serving the U.S. population.

From 1789 until the 1970s, a new senator had to rely upon the friendly advice of senior members or Senate officers and staff to learn the traditions and folkways of the Senate, according to the Senate’s website.

In the 1970s the Senate instituted a formal orientation program to help newly-elected members become acquainted with the Capitol, learn the Senate’s rules and procedures, set up an office and hire staff, and participate in leadership elections, according to the Senate’s website.

At times, senators have been appointed or have come to office, and every new senator faces similar challenges. For this reason, as former Senate Parliamentarian Floyd Riddick explains, every two years the Senate creates a “mini-school” for its new members, the website states.

Schatz is not the first senator from Hawai‘i to be appointed. In April 1990, Akaka was appointed by then-Gov. John Waihee to replace Sen. Spark Matsunaga, D-Hawai‘i. Akaka served Matsunaga’s unexpired four-year term, and was re-elected in every subsequent election.

Schatz, however, is the last on a list of 190 senators who have been appointed to office since 1913.

House duties

Also referred to as a congressman or congresswoman, each U.S. House representative is elected to a two-year term serving the people of a specific congressional district, according to the House’s official website.

Among other duties, representatives introduce bills and resolutions, offer amendments and serve on committees. The number of representatives with full voting rights is 435, a number set by Public Law 62-5 on Aug. 8, 1911, and in effect since 1913. The number of representatives per state is proportionate to population, according to the House’s website.

Hawai‘i has two representatives in the House — one representing Honolulu and the other representing O‘ahu’s rural areas and all Neighbor Islands.

Also, there are five delegates representing the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. A resident commissioner represents Puerto Rico. The delegates and resident commissioner possess the same powers as other members of the House, but lack voting power when the House is meeting as the House of Representatives, according to the House’s website.

Visit www.senate.gov and www.house.gov for more information.