Colleen Wakako Hanabusa (May 4, 1951 – March 6, 2026) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Hawaii's 1st congressional district from 2011 to 2015 and again from 2016 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she ran for her party's nomination for governor of Hawaii in 2018, challenging and losing to incumbent and fellow Democrat David Ige.
Before her election to the United States House of Representatives, Hanabusa was a member of the Hawaii Senate. She served as Senate Majority Leader before being elected Hawaii's first female President of the Senate in 2007. On August 24, 2011, she announced her intention to run for election to Congress. On December 17, 2012, after the death of U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, it was announced that Inouye had sent a letter shortly before his death to Governor Neil Abercrombie, stating his desire that Hanabusa be appointed to the seat. Abercrombie decided against appointing Hanabusa and selected Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz instead. Hanabusa challenged Schatz in the Democratic primary for the 2014 special election, but narrowly lost.
In 2016, Hanabusa announced her intention to run in the 1st congressional district special election to fill the remaining term of Representative Mark Takai, who died in July 2016; she won the Democratic primary for the race on August 13. On November 8, 2016, Hanabusa won the special election for the remainder of Takai's term and also won election to a full term; although her seniority resumed immediately, she needed to be sworn in to perform congressional duties, and she took the oath on November 14. In 2017, Hanabusa announced her decision to run for the governorship of Hawaii in 2018 rather than reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. She lost to incumbent Democratic governor David Ige in the primary, and Ige was reelected to a second term. In February 2020, Hanabusa announced her campaign for Mayor of Honolulu in 2020. She placed third in the nonpartisan blanket primary. Hanabusa's final role in public service was on the board of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, from which she retired in 2025.
A fourth-generation American of Japanese ancestry, Hanabusa was born on May 4, 1951, in Honolulu and grew up in Waiʻanae with her two younger brothers, her parents, and her grandparents. Her parents, Isao and June, owned a gas station. Her maternal grandfather was confined at the Honouliuli Internment Camp on Oahu during World War II. In 1969 she graduated from St. Andrew's Priory. She received a B.A. in economics and sociology in 1973 and an M.A. in sociology in 1975 from the University of Hawaiʻi and in 1977 received a J.D. from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Hanabusa was a labor lawyer with almost 30 years of experience, and a corporate officer in a family-run corporation. She was recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, Woodward and White, Inc.; served as a delegate to the Hawai`i State Judicial Conference; and was noted in Honolulu Magazine as one of Hawai`i's A+ Attorneys in 1993 and subsequent years.
In November 1998 Hanabusa was elected the state senator from the 21st District. The 21st District includes Wai'anae, where her family has resided for four generations, as well as Ko Olina, Kahe Point, Nanakuli, Ma'ili, Makaha, Makua, and Ka'ena Point.
One of Hanabusa's first acts upon being elected was to organize senators to vote against the second-term confirmation of Hawaii Attorney General Margery Bronster.
Hanabusa served as Senate Majority Leader before being elected the first woman president of the Senate in 2006, making her the first Asian American woman to preside over a state legislative chamber in the United States. In 2003 she was named one of Hawaii's "top ten political power brokers", along with the state's governor and two U.S. senators, by Hawaii Business Magazine.
Hanabusa ran unsuccessfully in a special election held in January 2003 to replace the late Patsy T. Mink as U.S. Representative from Hawai'i's 2nd congressional district, losing to Ed Case, a Blue Dog Democrat. In 2006 she ran for the same seat after Case decided not run for reelection to the house but rather to in the end unsuccessfully challenge Senator Daniel Akaka in the Democratic primary. Hanabusa was again unsuccessful, losing in the Democratic primary to former Lieutenant Governor Mazie Hirono by 844 votes.
Serving the Leeward Coast as state senator since 1998
State senate president since 2007
State senate majority leader since 2007
Chair, Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee
Co-chair, Joint Senate House Task Force on Ice and Drug Abatement
Senate's first statewide hearings on Rice v. Cayetano
United States Supreme Court decision co-chair, Joint Senate House Investigative Committee: Felix Consent Decree
2001 Vice chair, Senate Ways and Means Committee
Chair, Senate Committee on Water, Land, and Hawaiian Affairs