Rep. Ed Case (D) Elected Nov. 2002, 1st full term
Born:	Sept. 27, 1952, Hilo
Home:	Honolulu
Education:	Williams Col., B.A. 1975, U. of CA Hastings Col. of Law, J.D. 1981
Religion:	Protestant
Marital Status:	married (Audrey)
Elected  Office:	Manoa Neighborhood Bd., 1985-89; HI House of Reps., 1999-2002, Maj. Ldr., 1999-2000.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1983-2002; L.A., Sen. Spark Matsunaga, 1975-78; Clerk, HI Supreme Ct. Chief Justice William Richardson, 1981-82.
DC Office	115 CHOB20515, 202-225-4906; Fax: 202-225-4987; Web site: www.house.gov/case
State Offices	Honolulu, 808-541-1986.
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The 2d District of Hawaii includes not only the Neighbor Islands but most of Oahu's acreage beyond the old limits of Honolulu. It has Wheeler Army Airfield and the farmlands north of Pearl Harbor, between two jagged chains of mountains that lift the island out of the sea. Over the mountains to the west on Oahu is the Leeward Coast--calm, sultry and lightly populated; over the mountains to the northeast is the Windward Coast with many prosperous and Republican subdivisions in and around Kaneohe and Kailua. The 137 islands have distinct personalities. Hawaii, the Big Island, is the size of Connecticut and boasts huge cattle ranches, the active volcano of Kilauea, which started erupting in 1983 and had not stopped as of early 2005, and Mauna Kea, the highest mountain in the world if you count from its base far under the ocean to the peak; tourists are told that it is bad luck to take pieces of lava home, and many send them back. On the north shore, with heavy rainfall and tropical foliage, is the old port of Hilo and Hawaii's macadamia nut industry; this is a blue-collar Democratic area in a natural wonderland. On the Kona Coast, where there is little rainfall and the landscape is dominated by lava flows, there are retirement condominiums and a higher-income, more Republican population. Maui, favored more by North American than Asian tourists, has dozens of luxury condominiums and vast upscale resorts. Workers are employed chiefly in tourism, the military, social services and agriculture. Kauai, much of which was devastated by Hurricane Iniki in 1992, is the least developed and most agricultural of the main islands; parts of it have the nation's highest rainfall, while others seldom get wet. Its large farm work force--a reminder of what most of Hawaii was like a century ago--makes it the most Democratic of the islands.

The congressman from the 2d District is Ed Case, a Democrat who managed to win two elections after the November 2002 general election and still get sworn in with the new Congress in January 2003. A fourth-generation Hawaiian, his father founded the local chapter of the Association for Retarded Citizens; his mother was a librarian and was elected to the Hawaii School Advisory Council. He is a cousin of former AOL Time-Warner chairman Steve Case. Ed Case attended local schools before venturing to the Mainland, where he graduated from Williams College and Hastings Law School in San Francisco. He spent three years on Capitol Hill as an aide to Senator Spark Matsunaga. After returning home, he became a partner in a Honolulu law firm, where he specialized in land and commercial law. He narrowly lost when he ran for the state House in 1986 and the state Senate in 1988. Finally he was elected to the state House in 1994, where he was majority leader in 1999 and 2000.

The year 2002 was an extraordinarily busy campaign year for Case by any measure. On September 21 he lost the gubernatorial primary to Lieutenant Governor Mazie Hirono by a 41%-39% margin. He ran as a reformer in a state where the dominant Democratic machine, which held the governorship for 40 years, was being buffeted by criticism for overspending and corruption. Then 2d District Congresswoman Patsy Mink, first elected in 1964, defeated in a Senate primary in 1976 and elected again to the House in 1990, died on September 28. State law prohibited changes in the general election ballot after September 26, and so Mink's name remained on the ballot. On November 5 she was posthumously reelected 56%-40% against Republican state Representative Bob McDermott.

This was the first of three elections in two months for this district. Outgoing Governor Ben Cayetano called a special election for November 30 to fill the remaining five weeks of the term. It was a winner-take-all contest, in which 12 Democrats, 13 Republicans and 16 candidates of other parties filed to run. The initial favorite was John Mink, Patsy Mink's widower, who said that he wanted to honor the work of his former wife and keep her office together. Case, running as a reformer with more moderate views on economic and labor issues than other Hawaii Democrats, won a surprising 51% of the votes to John Mink's 36%. Case never took the oath of office for the 107th Congress, but he did accrue seniority over other incoming freshmen. And he was able to run as the incumbent in the January 4 special election to fill Patsy Mink's seat in the 108th Congress. In all, 44 candidates filed to run in this winner-take-all contest. Case's chief opponent was former Democratic state Senator Matt Matsunaga, a son of the late Spark Matsunaga and the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in November 2002. Case said that he could support unilateral military action against Iraq only if there was "a clear and present danger" against the United States; Matsunaga ran election-eve ads claiming that Case supported the legalization of marijuana and lower pay for teachers. Case defeated Matsunaga 44%-30%, winning decisively in Kauai, where the Case family has roots, and on the Big Island.

In the House, Case's voting record is near the center of the Democratic Party, a bit more conservative on foreign issues. He enacted a bill to double the size of the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, which is the habitat for many stream species and water birds. He sought $7 million to fight coqui frogs, a small invasive species that emits a piercing sound and has created a state of emergency on the Big Island. He urged the National Park Service to make repairs at the visitors center of the USS Arizona Memorial, which was built on poor soil and is sinking.

In November 2004, Case was opposed by Honolulu councilman Mike Gabbard, who stressed his opposition to same-sex marriages; Case dismissed him as a single-issue candidate and won 63%-37%. After the election, he said that he would not challenge Governor Lingle in 2006, but that he would run for the Senate when one of the seats becomes open; Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka turned 80 within four days of each other in September 2004.

Committees

• Agriculture (6th of 21 D): Conservation, Credit, Rural Development & Research; Livestock & Horticulture (RMM).
• Budget (13th of 17 D).
• Small Business (8th of 15 D): Regulatory Reform & Oversight; Rural Enterprises, Agriculture & Technology; Tax, Finance & Exports.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	90	65	88	100	70	19	50	20	17	8	--
2003	95	--	100	90	--	29	48	24	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	64%	--	35%		61%	--	38%
Social	84%	--	13%		64%	--	35%
Foreign	56%	--	43%		58%	--	42%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill N 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 5. DC School Vouchers N 6. Ban Human Cloning N		7. Restrict Gun Liability N  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Ed Case (D)	133,317	63%	$784,823
	Mike Gabbard (R)	79,072	37%	$484,160
2004 primary	Ed Case (D)	73,705	95%
	John Gentile (D)	4,121	5%
2003 spec. gen.	Ed Case (D)	33,002	44%	$124,973
	Matt Matsunaga (D)	23,050	30%
	Colleen Hanabusa (D)	6,046	8%
	Barbara Marumoto (R)	4,497	6%
	Bob McDermott (R)	4,298	6%
	Other	4,681	6%
2002 spec. gen.	Ed Case (D)	23,576	51%
	John Mink (D)	16,624	36%
	John Carroll (R)	1,933	4%
	Other	2,754	6%
Prior winning percentages: 2002 (51%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 120,633 (56%) Bush (R) 94,860 (44%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 104,830 (56%) Bush (R) 67,118 (36%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Second District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +10
• District Size: 10,605 square miles
• Population in 2000: 604,819; 83.8% urban; 16.2% rural
• Median Household Income: $48,686; 11.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 19.3% blue collar; 56.7% white collar; 24.0% gray collar; 13.3% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 28.0% White, 1.5% Black, 28.0% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 11.3% Hawaiian, 21.7% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 9.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 5.4% German, 4.2% Portuguese, 4.0% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.