Hawai’i has a new Senator-designate

The senior Senate position left open after Senator Inouye’s death last week has been filled, or will be when he’s sworn in. The State Democratic Party winnowed its lengthy list of applicants for the job down to three and submitted all three names to Governor Neil Abercrombie today. He promptly named Lt. Governor Brian Schatz to the job. Schatz has a long list of accomplishments, but one that might go unmentioned but was surely in the Governor’s mind is his relative youth. Schatz is 40; his principal opponent, Representative Colleen Hanabusa, is 61. Senator Inouye was 88 when he died, and our junior Senator, Daniel Akaka, retires next month, also at the age of 88. His replacement, Mazie Hirono, is 65. Had he selected Rep. Hanabusa, who was Senator Inouye’s choice, we’d have two U.S. Senators more or less the same age serving concurrently. Given the Hawai’i electorate’s penchant for re-electing our Congresspeople forever, we might be facing the same situation twenty years from now that faced us this month: two Senators in their eighties who might retire or die at any moment.

That being the case, I think I’m in favor of Governor Abercrombie’s choice here.