Former Hawaii Congresswoman Pat Saiki, who served in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1991, has passed away.

She was 96.

Saiki was the second woman in Hawaii elected to represent the state in Congress, as well as the first Republican Hawaii Congress member.

She later served as Administrator of the Small Business Administration under President George H.W. Bush.

Aloha State Daily has more:

She reportedly died peacefully in her home in Kāhala, according to the Hawai‘i State Teachers Association, a successor organization to the state’s first teachers’ union, which she founded.

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Before her career in politics, the Hilo-born Saiki was a public school teacher at Kaimukī Intermediate School. When her daughter fell ill at school and was taken to the hospital, she was told she could not use school phones for personal business such as checking on her daughter, which led her to form the Teacher’s Chapter of the Hawai‘i Government Employees Association.

Saiki ran for the state House of Representatives in 1968 and won — becoming the first woman to hold the seat — and served through 1974. Following that, she ran for the state Senate, where she served until 1982, when she unsuccessfully ran for Lieutenant Governor.

In 1986, she was elected to her U.S. House seat, where she served until 1990 before an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run.

“I’m sorry to learn about the loss of former Congresswoman Patricia Saiki. Only the second woman elected to represent Hawaii in Congress; she spent her career advancing education at every level, fighting for Japanese Americans, and supporting reproductive freedoms. My thoughts and aloha go out to her family at this difficult time,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) commented.

“I join all of our Hawai‘i in remembering and honoring the life and legacy of U. S. Representative Patricia (Pat) Saiki. She is rightly credited with many specific accomplishments. But above all she was a pioneer who broke barriers, easing the path for others that followed, and her decades of public service were marked by commitment to her country and Hawai‘i, determination, accomplishment, example and grace,” Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) said.

“Rep. Saiki was a worthy steward of the office of Hawaii’s First Congressional District, setting a high bar for those that followed and will follow. I join in extending my sincere condolences and appreciation to her beloved family,” he added.

Hawaii News Now shared further:

As her press secretary in Congress, Floyd Takeuchi said she made her mark as a freshman Republican.

“Pretty low on the totem pole, very, very, very low in fact. And she said, the hell with this. I’m gonna go talk to the Republican leadership. I want to change some votes on their opposition to reparations for Japanese Americans who incarcerated in World War II,” Takeuchi recalled. “She started working one by one, the members of the caucus, and she changed enough votes to get the bill through Congress.”

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In 1990, Saiki urged President Bush to stop the Navy’s military testing on Kaho’olawe.

“When the president came to her and said, Pat, what’s one thing I can do for you and the people of Hawaii? she said, The bombing is allowed on Kaho’olawe by an executive order of the president, and you can rescind that executive order right away, and he did that, and the bombing stopped at long last because Pat Saiki,” said Keoki Kerr, a former journalist who worked as Saiki’s press aide in Washington, DC.

“She also was really good at reaching out across the aisle, you know, the Democrats controlled the US House when I worked there, but she still had lots of friends who were Republicans, and she was really middle of the road and could work on deals and come to compromise to for the betterment of the state of Hawaii on so many different issues.”

“She was tough as nails,” Kerr added. “She had to be in this male dominated profession of dealing with politics and wheeling and dealing and advocating for Hawaii. She would not take no for an answer, and the people in Hawaii are really better for it.”

 

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