Senate Showdown
They may both be Democrats, but as a member of MidWeek’s editorial board commented after Sen. Dan Akaka and his challenger, Congressman Ed Case, visited our office for interviews, they’re ‘like night and day’
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Archive | RSS |
Del.icio.usKamehameha, World War II sucked up Danny Akaka. He served in the United States Army in Saipan and Tinian. After his discharge, he attended the University of Hawaii on the G.I. Bill. “Thank God for the G.I. Bill,” he says.
Case went from HPA to a year on an Australian sheep ranch and then to the prestigious Williams College in western Massachusetts. Following graduation, he went to work as an intern in the office Hawaii Sen. Spark Matsunaga. He spent three years in Matsunaga’s office before entering the Hastings Law School in San Francisco.
Akaka received his degree in education from the University of Hawaii in 1952, then joined the Territorial Department of Education, first as a teacher, then as a principal. He earned a master’s in education in 1966.
A newly minted lawyer, Case returned to Hawaii in 1981 to clerk for Chief Justice William Richardson. He then spent a year in the state labor department before joining his father’s law firm, Carlsmith Ball, in 1983.
In 1970 the long arm of Gov. John A. Burns reached out to Akaka. “Gov. Burns asked me three times to come to work for him,” Akaka remembers. “He kept telling me that I could help more people in government than in teaching.” Akaka finally relented and became the state director of the Office of Economic Opportunity under Burns.
Burns also prodded Akaka to run for public office. In 1974, Akaka did, seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor. He lost, but two years later, when the 2nd Congressional District opened up, Akaka beat Leeward State Sen. Joe Kuroda for the Democratic nomination and the seat.
Case also met with defeat in his first attempt for public office; in 1986 he ran for state representative from his Manoa district and lost by 36 votes in the Democratic primary. Two years later, in a bid for a state Senate seat, he lost again. Defeat persuaded Case to get “serious about the law.” He became the managing partner of his firm in 1992. In 1994, he ran again for the state House, won, and spent the next eight years in the state House.
Akaka spent 14 years in the United States House of Representatives. With the death of Sen. Sparky Matsunaga in 1990, Gov. John Waihee appointed Akaka to the Senate seat, making him the first Hawaiian to ever hold a seat in that body - and only the second of Chinese ancestry. In the November 1990 election, Akaka defeated Congresswoman Patricia Saiki for the remaining four years on Matsunaga’s term. Akaka was reelected easily in 1994 and 2000.
Case, in the meantime, was doing battle in the state House. “I was an outsider from the outset,” he said. “My Manoa constituents wanted change, and I found myself out on a limb all the time. Some of my fellow Democrats saw me as a dissident in my own party.” In 2000, Case spent an unhappy year as majority leader of the House. Many of his colleagues balked at his leadership, and Case gave up the position after a year.
In October 2001, Case announced his candidacy for governor. After Mayor Jeremy Harris dropped out of the race and Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono switched from a mayoral run to the governor’s contest, Case came within 2,600 votes of winning the prize. With the death of Patsy Mink, Case rode his hard-won state name recognition and won the seat.
Dan Akaka’s tenure in the United States Senate has been, like that of his predecessor Matsunaga, in the large shadow cast by the senior senator, Dan Inouye. Akaka’s voting record largely mimics that of the other Dan. Akaka’s greatest accomplishment to date, by his own reckoning, is the apology bill of 1993 in which President Bill Clinton and a congressional Democratic majority apologized to Hawaiians for U.S. complicity in the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.
Akaka says that “not a day goes by that I don’t enjoy going to work as a United States senator. It gives me an opportunity to help so many people, and it fulfills me and my spirit.”
The wives
So too does Millie Chong Akaka, the Senator’s wife of more than 50 years. “She’s an unpaid staffer,” says Akaka, “the cook and cleanup lady. She comes to the office every day.” The Akakas have five grown children and 14 grandchildren.
Audrey Nakamura Case was the congressman’s classmate at HPA and is his second wife. Each brought two children to their marriage in 2001. “I couldn’t do it without her,” says Case. “And she’s a helluva lot of fun to campaign with.” Audrey Case is a flight attendant with United, and - whatever the voters decide on Sept. 23 - intends to keep her job.
Page 3 of 3 pages for this story < 1 2 3
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
