AAPI VOTE 2018: Sen. Mazie Hirono fired up to fight cancer and Trump

Sen. Mazie Hirono, 2nd from left, announces her plans to run for reelection.

WHEN U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono announced her intention to run for reelection despite undergoing treatments for her cancer,  she said, “If anything, I am even more vocal and visible than ever because this administration gives me a lot of opportunities to be vocal.” 

“There are people in our country, in our communities who are being marginalized and discriminated against every single day. I fight for them,” she said. “Whether it’s families who just want health care as a right — not a privilege, or our kupuna who rely on Medicare and Social Security, or workers who want to be able to organize for better wages and conditions … for immigrants who just want a chance at a better life, or LGBTQ communities … who just want equal rights,” she said.

She wasted no time in demonstrating her fighting spirit by following up with her ongoing questioning of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

Last month, Hirono had questioned Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke about the department’s censorship of the words “climate change” in a pending National Park Service report on the impacts of sea level rise on coastal flooding. Zinke denied changing any of the report, saying not even a comma was changed.

“I challenge you — any member — to find a document that we’ve actually changed on a report,” he told her. “And I read them all. I don’t change a comma.”

After her campaign announcement, Hirono tweeted, “It appears that @reveal has found otherwise. If true, this report illustrates yet again that the Trump administration both disdains science and lacks integrity.”

According to an April 2 report from the Reveal journalism site, part of the Center For Investigative Reporting, “National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge, contradicting Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s vow to Congress that his department is not censoring science.”

The omissions, says the report, "reflect a broader crackdown on climate science at federal agencies, including removal of references to human impacts, since President Donald Trump took office. Trump previously called climate change a Chinese hoax, took steps to withdraw from an international agreement to cut greenhouse gases and moved toward reversing President Barack Obama’s policies to regulate power plant emissions."

Hirono's interest in the Department of Interior report stems from the fact that Hawaii, as an island state is vulnerable to rising sea levels, a result of the melting ice caps.

“I’ve been very open about my health challenge because I think it’s really important to let my constituents know that in spite of the fact that I am still in treatment, nothing about this treatment prevents me from doing my job,” she said. “I’m optimistic and certainly that optimism is shared by my doctors.”

A former state lawmaker and lieutenant governor, Hirono was elected in 2006 to the U.S. House seat representing the Neighbor Islands and rural Oahu. She was later elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012, following Sen. Daniel Akaka’s retirement.

At this point, four Republicans, two independents and one other Democrat had pulled papers, to challenge her. She also has history on her side: No U.S. senator from Hawaii has lost a re-election bid.

Whether it's' cancer or Trump, she sounds like she's in the mood for a good fight. “Every single day there’s some new thing that makes my head explode.”

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