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June 20, 2013

Politics

Hawaii Gov defies late Sen. Inouye by appointing lieutenant governor as replacement

BY: JOEL GEHRKE DECEMBER 26, 2012 | 7:35 PM | MODIFIED: DECEMBER 26, 2012 AT 8:05 PM
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Photo - Hawaii Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz speaks the state Capitol in Honolulu on Wednesday, Dec. 26. 2012 after Gov. Neil Abercrombie, right, announced he was appointing Schatz to fill the seat vacated by the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Hawaii Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz speaks the state Capitol in Honolulu on Wednesday, Dec. 26. 2012 after Gov. Neil Abercrombie, right, announced he was appointing Schatz to fill the seat vacated by the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Topics: Beltway Confidential

Gov. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, defied the dying wish of Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, by appointing the state’s lieutenant governor to finish the senator’s term rather than Inouye’s preferred successor.

“No one and nothing was pre-ordained,” Abercrombie said today when announcing that Lt. Governor Brian Schatz would finish out Inouye’s term, which ends in 2014. “Of course Senator Inouye’s views and wishes were taken into account fully,” he also said.

“We want to remember and be thankful for all of the Senator’s good works for the State of Hawaii and the Nation,” Abercrombie wrote yesterday in asking the state Democratic Party to provide three nominees to replace Inouye. “We will do that.”

The state party reportedly proposed “Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, Deputy State Land and Natural Resources Director Esther Kiaaina and Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz,” per ABC.

Inouye tried to get the seat for Hanabusa by making it known that it was his dying wish that Abercrombie appoint her to succeed her.

“I hope you will grant me my last wish,” Inouye wrote in a letter to Abercrombie, which his staff then provided to the media. “While I understand that selecting someone to serve out the remainder of my term is fully your responsibility, I respectfully request that U.S. Representative Colleen Hanabusa succeed me, and continue the work, together with Mazie, on behalf of Hawaii in the U.S. Senate.”

Abercrombie, who faces reelection in two years, is possibly taking a risk by defying Inouye’s last request. “Can you make it any more dramatic than Inouye specifically saying (appointing Hanabusa) is a deathbed wish?” John Hart, professor and chair of the Hawaii Pacific University Department of Communication, told the Honolulu Civil Beat. “And on the other hand of the political drama, if Abercrombie wants to say there’s a new sheriff in town, there would be nothing more dramatic than denying the senator’s deathbed wish.”

 

 

 

 

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Author:

Joel Gehrke

Commentary Writer
The Washington Examiner
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