Brian Emanuel Schatz (; born October 20, 1972) is an American educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Hawaii, a seat he has held since 2012. Governor Neil Abercrombie appointed Schatz to replace Senator Daniel Inouye after Inouye's death.
Schatz served in the Hawaii House of Representatives from 1998 to 2006, representing the 25th legislative district, and was chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii from 2008 to 2010. He also worked as chief executive officer of Helping Hands Hawaii, an Oahu nonprofit social service agency, until he resigned to run for lieutenant governor of Hawaii in the 2010 gubernatorial election as Abercrombie's running mate. He served as lieutenant governor until December 26, 2012, when Abercrombie appointed him to serve the rest of Daniel Inouye's U.S. Senate term after Inouye's death. Schatz was the youngest U.S. senator in the 112th Congress. He won the 2014 special election to complete the remainder of Inouye's Senate term, and was reelected in 2016 to a full six-year term, defeating Republican John Carroll.


== Early life ==
Brian Schatz was born into a Jewish-American family in Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with an identical twin brother, Steve. He is the son of Barbara Jane (née Binder) and Irwin Jacob Schatz, a cardiologist and native of Saint Boniface, Manitoba.Schatz's father was the first to complain about the ethics of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, in a 1965 letter. The letter was ignored until the problem finally came to public attention in 1972. Irwin Schatz wrote that he was "astounded" that "physicians allow patients with potentially fatal disease to remain untreated when effective therapy is available." Brian Schatz said that his father didn't talk about the letter, but that it influenced him to pursue the public good.When Schatz and his brother were two years old the family moved to Hawaii, where Schatz graduated from Punahou School. Schatz enrolled at Pomona College in Claremont, California; he spent a term studying abroad in Kenya on a program of the School for International Training (SIT). As a U.S. senator, Schatz is one of Pomona’s highest-profile alumni; Pomona invited him to be the commencement speaker for its Class of 2017. After graduating in 1994 with a B.A. in philosophy, he returned to Hawaii, where he taught at Punahou before taking on other jobs in the nonprofit sector. He was briefly a member of the Green Party.


== Early career ==
Schatz became active in the community in the 1980s through his involvement in Youth for Environmental Services. He then served as CEO of Helping Hands Hawaii and director of the Makiki Community Library and of the Center for a Sustainable Future. In March 2010, Schatz stepped down from Helping Hands to run for lieutenant governor. He was a member of the 2007 class of the Pacific Century Fellows.


== Hawaii House of Representatives (1998–2006) ==
In 1998, Schatz challenged the incumbent State Representative of the 24th district of the Hawaii House of Representatives, Republican Sam Aiona, and won, 53%–47%. In the 2000 rematch he was reelected, 57%–43%.In 2002 he ran in the newly redrawn 25th House district, and defeated Republican Bill Hols, 69%–31%. In 2004 he defeated Republican Tracy Okubo, 64%–36%. The 25th district includes Makiki and Tantalus on Oahu.


== Subsequent political career (2006–10) ==


=== 2006 congressional election ===

Schatz ran for Hawaii's 2nd congressional district, vacated by Ed Case, who had decided to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Daniel Akaka. The Democratic primary featured 10 candidates, seven of whom served in the Hawaii Legislature. Mazie Hirono, the lieutenant governor, was the only one who had held statewide office and thus enjoyed the most name recognition. She also raised the most money, mostly because of the endorsement of EMILY's List, and lent her own campaign $100,000. She won the primary with 22% of the vote, just 845 votes ahead of State Senator Colleen Hanabusa. Schatz finished sixth with 7% of the vote, behind Hirono and four state senators.


=== Support for Obama ===
One of the earliest supporters of Barack Obama for president, Schatz founded a group with other Hawaii Democrats in December 2006 to urge Obama to run, saying, "For the last six years we've been governed by fear, fear of terrorists, fear of other countries, even fear of the other party...everyone is governing by fear and Barack Obama changes all of that. He wants to govern the United States by hope." In 2008 Schatz worked as spokesman for Obama's campaign in Hawaii.


=== State Chairman ===
In April 2008, Schatz began running for the position of chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, and won the job at the state convention the following month. During his tenure, the Democrats increased the number of active party members and delivered Obama's best performance of any state in the country. Hawaii native Obama won the state with 73% of the vote; just 55% of the sta