HONOLULU — Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, a rising political star here who is unknown on the national scene, will become the state’s next United States senator, filling a leadership vacuum in Honolulu and in Washington after the death of Senator Daniel K. Inouye last week.
Gov. Neil Abercrombie announced Wednesday that the lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz, would succeed Mr. Inouye, who represented Hawaii in Congress for half a century.
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Mr. Schatz, 40, said he was would fly immediately to Washington so he could be sworn in on Thursday.
The decision capped a weeklong, “American Idol”-style selection process. Fourteen candidates applied for the position, and the state Democratic Party narrowed the pool to three finalists. The governor then made his decision.
It was a diverse and eclectic lot who applied. Besides Mr. Schatz, there was the son of a former lieutenant governor, two pilots, a handyman’s apprentice and an Iraq veteran who was elected to her first term in Congress last month.
The process, criticized by some Democrats here as confusing and chaotic, ultimately resolved a political quandary that had ramifications far beyond Hawaii’s shores. With a bitter partisan feud over taxes and spending playing out 5,000 miles away in Washington — a dispute in which every vote in Congress is being carefully counted — Senate Democrats can scarcely afford to have their 55-to-45 majority drop by 1.
