Information about Ed Case

Ed Case
Ed Case
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii's 2nd district
In office 2002–2007
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Born	September 27 1952 (1952--) (age 55) Hilo, Hawaiʻi
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Audrey Nakamura
Religion	Non-denominational Protestant

Edward Espenett "Ed" Case (born September 27, 1952) is a Democratic politician. He represented Hawaiʻi's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He was first elected in 2002 in a special election to fill the seat of Patsy T. Mink, who died of pneumonia. In 2006 Case chose not to run for another term in the House of Representatives so he could challenge Senator Daniel Akaka in the Democratic primary for Akaka's U.S. Senate seat. Case lost the primary election.

Case first gained popularity in Hawaiʻi as majority leader of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature and for his reform campaign for Governor of Hawaiʻi in 2002.

Early years

Case was born on September 27 1952 in Hilo on the island of Hawaiʻi, the eldest of six children. In 1970, Case graduated from Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy in Kamuela. After high school, Case traveled for a year in Australia, where he worked as a jackeroo on a New South Wales sheep station, and in New Zealand. Case then attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in psychology in 1975.

Legal career

In 1981, Case graduated from the University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco with a juris doctor.

From 1981 to 1982, Case served as law clerk to Hawaiʻi Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson. From 1983 to 2002, he worked at the law firm Carlsmith Ball in Honolulu, where he became a partner in 1989, and served as managing partner from 1992 to 1994, when he was first elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives. Case resigned his partnership upon winning election to the United States Congress in 2002. Case told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in January 2007 that he will work for the Honolulu-based law firm of Bays Deaver Lung Rose & Baba, where Crystal Rose, his former campaign manager, is a partner. [1]

Early political life

Case got his first taste of political life as Legislative Assistant to Congressman and then Senator Spark Matsunaga in Washington, D.C. from 1975 to 1978. In 1985, Case won his first election, to the Mānoa Neighborhood Board of Honolulu. He became its chairman in 1987, a position he held until leaving the board in 1989.

Hawaiʻi House of Representatives

Case served four two-year terms in the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives from 1994 to 2002, where he focused on basic change in Hawaiʻi governance. In 1999, after Case led an effort to replace the leadership of the State House, his Democratic peers elected him Majority Leader. But as Majority Leader, Case butted heads with influential senior members of the Democratic Party. Case sought to change the current way state government operated and repeatedly warned that Hawaiʻi was not addressing long-term fiscal challenges. On the last legislative day of 2000, Case said in a floor speech: "If you cannot make those choices, please get out of the way, because you are just making it harder for the rest of us."^[1]

On January 21, 1997, in the House Judiciary Committee, Case cast the lone nay vote against advancing HB117, the bill that would allow a referendum to effectively, constitutionally ban gay marriage.^[2] He and six others opposed the bill again in the full house vote.^[3] When he was up for re-election in November of 1998, he publicly opposed the referendum. His reasoning: "changing the Constitution would go against its intended purpose — protecting the rights of the minority against the will of the majority."^[4] Leading up to the November election, polls consistently predicted that the measure would pass by 70–75%, a prediction that was accurate.^[5] Due to the measure's popularity, only three other politicians or candidates in Hawaiʻi joined his position.^[6]

In 2001, Case cosponsored a doomed civil unions bill.^[7]

2002 gubernatorial campaign

In early 2001, at the beginning of his fourth term in the Hawaiʻi State House, Case chose not to continue as Majority Leader so that he could speak out independently on the changes he believed Hawaiʻi needed to make in its political and other systems. In October 2001, Case announced his candidacy for Governor of Hawaiʻi in 2002. Case's initial opponent was the early favorite in the race, Mayor of Honolulu Jeremy Harris, also a Democrat. Case supporters were discontent with the "Hawaiʻi Democratic Party machine" that had ruled the state for 40 years and perceived to have left the economy stagnant, a "machine" to which Harris was closely tied.

Despite high polling numbers, Harris abruptly dropped out of the race in May 2002 because of ongoing campaign spending investigations. Lieutenant Governor Mazie K. Hirono dropped out of her race for Mayor of Honolulu to challenge Case in the primary. A later entrant into the Democratic primary was D. G. "Andy" Anderson, the former Republican state chair and aide to former Honolulu Mayor Frank F. Fasi. Case told Hawaiʻi voters that his campaign was one of government reform and the future as opposed to Hirono and Anderson who represented the "Old Boys' Network" and a status quo past.

In one of the closest primary elections for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Hawaiʻi history, Hirono beat Case, 41% to 39%, with Anderson a distant third. In the general election, Hirono faced Republican Linda Lingle in the general election; Lingle's campaign reform theme was called Agenda for New Beginnings. Lingle won.

House of Representatives

2002 and 2003 special elections

U.S. Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink died on September 28, 2002, one week after the primary election, leaving her 107th Congress (2001–2003) seat vacant. She was subsequently posthumously reelected to the 108th Congress (2003–2005) in November of the same year. On November 30, 2002, Case was elected in a special election to fill her vacancy in the remaining weeks of the 107th Congress, gaining over 50% of the vote in a field of over forty. Case immediately ran for reelection in a second special election in early January 2003 for Mink's 108th Congress seat, going up against more than three dozen other candidates, among them Democrats Matt Matsunaga and Colleen Hanabusa, and Republicans Barbara Marumoto, Bob McDermott, and Frank Fasi. Case won that election with 43 percent of the vote.

2004 re-election campaign

In 2004, Case was challenged by Republican Mike Gabbard, a social conservative who focused almost exclusively on anti-homosexual issues. Case won the election with 63% of the vote.^[8]

2006 Senatorial campaign

Main article: Hawaii U.S. Senate election, 2006

Case challenged Senator Daniel Akaka in the Democratic primary election.

Case said that although he has the deepest respect for Akaka, Hawaiʻi was in a time of transition with regard to the state's representation in Congress and especially in the Senate, and that the transition required that Hawaiʻi phases in the next generation to provide continuity in that service. Case said that the state would lose all clout in Washington if the state's two U.S. Senators, both of whom are over 80 years old, left office within a short time of each other.

Case lost the September primary, 54-45%. Akaka centered his campaign on the difference in support for the U.S. intervention in Iraq: Akaka was one of only a handful of Democratic Senators to vote against the use of force resolution against Iraq in 2002; Case, while not in Congress at the time of the vote, had said he would have voted in support of the resolution.^[9]

Family

Case's has two children from his first marriage, from 1988 to 1998: James (b. 1988) and David (b. 1990). In 2001 Case married Audrey Nakamura, a former classmate from Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy, who is a flight attendant with United Airlines. Case became reacquainted with her during their 30th class reunion. "I was in a definite, major-league crush with her for two years back in seventh and eighth grade," Case said in an interview. Audrey had two children of her own, David (b. 1983) and Megan (b. 1986), from a previous marriage.

His cousin Steve Case is the founder of America Online, as well as the former chairman of Time Warner, and is still one of the Time Warner's biggest individual shareholders.

References

External links

• * Ed Case at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign Website
• Ed Case's Unofficial Site
• NetOp Site
• 2006 Hawaii's 2nd district Candidate List from VIS
• Honolulu Star-Bulletin, January 4, 2007, "Case Still Has Taste for Politics: The Ex-congressman Believes His Skills are Best Suited for Another Career on Capitol Hill

Preceded by Patsy Mink

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Hawaii's At-large congressional district November 30, 2002–January 4, 2007

Succeeded by Mazie Hirono