HCH photo by Anna Weaver

Lobbyist Kelly Rosati and Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona discuss issues of importance in Aiona’s office on Jan. 16, the day before the 2007 legislative session begins.

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Kelly Rosati is a team player. She was one back when she played volleyball for her high school and college teams. And she’s one today, putting her collaborative skills to work as a lobbyist for family and social issues at the Hawaii state legislature.

“There’s a history of people wanting Kelly to be on their team,” said Eva Andrade, who works closely with Rosati at Hawaii Family Forum (HFF), a non-profit pro-family education organization.

When she heads to the state capitol, Rosati represents two groups — the primarily evangelical HFF and the Hawaii Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Diocese of Honolulu. She speaks for both on a wide range of issues including physician-assisted suicide, homelessness and affordable housing, education, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, adoption and child safety.

At 5 feet 9 inches tall, with voluminous blonde hair and a smile to match her vivacious personality, Rosati is a striking presence in the capitol halls. What makes her stand out even more is her sharp intellect, her positive attitude, and her strong faith.

“She’s the only person I know that can say she disagrees with you with a big smile on her face,” said Francis Oda, HFF president and senior pastor at New Life Church. “And at the end of her making her points you say, ‘Thank you very much.’”

Rosati explains: “Just because someone doesn’t agree with us on every single thing we stand for doesn’t mean we’re not going to stop reaching out and trying to find allies wherever we can.”

A unique partnership

The collaboration between Hawaii Family Forum and the Hawaii Catholic Conference, which started two years ago, is unique, said Deacon Walter Yoshimitsu, the acting director of the HCC.

Not only are evangelicals and Catholics successfully working together, he said, but Rosati, a Protestant, is the voice for the Catholic diocese in the legislature.

According to vicar general Father Marc Alexander, having a Protestant be a spokeswoman for the Catholic Church wasn’t a big deal because “her values are solid with us and very consistent.”

“I think the ecumenical dimension makes all the difference in the world too,” he said. “It’s great seeing people of different churches working together when we share common values.”

“Kelly, time and time again, has proven to people that it’s about the family,” Andrade said. “And because of that whether you’re Catholic or Protestant you’re able to buy into what she’s trying to sell.”

“I absolutely hope that [the collaboration] could be a trend for things on the Mainland,” Rosati said. “Because if you look at the combined ability of those two communities to impact the larger community for good, particularly on behalf of the least of these, I think the potential is unlimited.”

Midwest beginnings

Born Kelly Sweeney, this passionate lobbyist grew up in the Wisconsin Dells area near Madison. She and her younger brother were raised as evangelical Christians, but Rosati says it “unfortunately” wasn’t a big part of her life at the time. Her parents divorced when she was in high school and both later remarried. Rosati has a teenage brother and sister from her father’s second marriage.

Rosati decided she wanted to be a lawyer in the third grade. “My mother would say I’ve always been a good talker, an arguer,” Rosati says laughing.

“Even from that young age I felt that I’d do oral advocacy,” she said. At first she thought she would ply her skills in the courtroom. However, she ended up, as she describes it, “in the front end of the justice system, in the legislative end.”

But it is still “arguing for what I believed in,” she said.

In high school, Rosati said she “wasn’t too public policy minded.” Instead, she played sports. She was a member of her school’s state champion volleyball team and participated in track where she still holds a triple-jump record.

Rosati went to Marquette University, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee where she played on the women’s volleyball team and focused on law studies and sociology. It wasn’t until around her senior year at college that she became more serious about her faith.

“You know how it is with the Lord,” she said. “He gently pursues and keeps after us. I just became convinced that there were things in my life that needed to change.”

“I didn’t have any interest in being a corporate lawyer or doing that kind of work, but I really wanted to get into areas of family life and religious freedom.”

After graduating, Rosati headed to Creighton University Law School in Nebraska, another Jesuit school, looking to be a “lawyer for God.”

It didn’t take John Rosati, who was in the Air Force at the time, too long to realize that Kelly was marriage material after they were set up for a volleyball date in September 1990. The two were married in August 1991, and Rosati transferred to the University of Nebraska College of Law where she graduated with distinction in 1993.

After law school she worked for a Catholic state senator in Nebraska and then a Wisconsin state legislator where she “learned the [political] process from the inside.” It was at her next job as director of government and legal affairs for a trade association of health insurance companies that she learned how to be a lobbyist.

A new state, a new job

In 1997, John’s Air Force job moved the Rosatis to Hawaii where Kelly found a job lobbying for the Hawaii Medical Service Association.

The first Sunday the Rosatis attended Kaimuki Christian Church was also the first week the church’s senior pastor, Ron Arnold, put a flier in the church bulletin announcing a job opening for an executive director of newly formed Hawaii Family Forum.

Rosati asked Arnold about the job but was told they were looking for someone who had been in Hawaii a little longer.

She nevertheless submitted her resume and after a sit-down interview with the HFF board a few months later, Rosati was hired.

Arnold says he’s glad he was wrong about Rosati. “She’s a rare combination,” he said. “She’s articulate, she’s informed, she’s passionate, and she’s gracious.”

“She really has a grasp and has a breadth that really spans the political spectrum, caring about God’s truth no matter the party or the political system.”

Nothing but praise

Those who have worked with Rosati testify to her winning combination of intelligence, personality, and conviction.

Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona has nothing but praise for Rosati.

“Kelly takes her job seriously, first and foremost, and that’s because she has a strong faith,” he said. “If she didn’t have that, it would be just another paid job.”

In addition, “she studies the issues and she knows the arguments,” Aiona said.

Father Alexander said that her sincere care for people “gives her tremendous credibility.”

“She might disagree with your positions but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t treat them with great dignity and respect,” he said.

Since Rosati’s appointment, Hawaii Catholic Conference member and superintendent of Hawaii Catholic Schools, Carmen Himenes, sees more “recognition of our issues and our philosophy behind some of the issues that the legislators face.”

“We have a voice there now that is very clear,” she said.

Though Rosati sometimes says she feels like a broken record talking about the perennial legislative issues, seeing results in either “stopping bad things or promoting positive things” is enough to keep her going.

The success comes not from asking for favors, but from building relationships.

“Rejecting the politics of ‘us versus them’ has been one of the reasons why we’ve been able to be successful,” she said.

Other evidence of Rosati’s success? She’s been asked to run for office several times. Gov. Linda Lingle recently nominated her to be on the Hawaii Children’s Trust Fund board. And in 2001 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin recognized her as one of “Ten Who Made a Difference” because of her crucial role in helping raise the age of sexual consent in Hawaii from 14 to 16.

Focusing on her family

One issue that Rosati is truly passionate about is finding homes for children without them. She is very involved in the Families for Waiting Keiki organization that helps place kids in permanent homes.

Andrade says the only time she sees Kelly cry is when she talks about orphans.

Rosati, 38, and her husband have adopted three children from the Hawaii foster care system. Six-year-old Daniel came home in 2000. The next year Anna Grace, now five, was added to the family. Last June they brought home their youngest son Joshua, now four.

“Kelly genuinely cares deeply about issues related to the family,” said John Rosati, the administrator of Kaimuki Christian Church and School. “It’s nothing that she manufactures or is contrived. It’s the real deal.”

Spending time at home with their kids and caring for Kelly’s aging grandparents prompted the Rosatis to move back to Wisconsin in 2003.

A year later they returned to Hawaii and Kelly resumed her former position at HFF, adding the job as the diocesan legislative spokeswoman.

Juggling a career and family responsibilities, Rosati is the first to admit that she can’t do everything. Her current job allows her a flexible schedule. The family also has someone help with cooking and cleaning.

Andrade says Kelly often reminds her that they work for Hawaii “Family” Forum and that family comes first.

“I will never be a workaholic who doesn’t put my kids to bed every night, or who is gone away missing the important things,” Rosati said.

Gentle But Strong

“Kelly is a warrior. But she’s a lovely warrior,” her husband John says. “She wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

Rosati says her current work as a lobbyist is her dream job. “I have absolutely no interest in being in private practice and making a boatload of money doing things that don’t make my heart beat.”

Now that she is back in Hawaii, it doesn’t seem like anyone is going to let her get away again.

Andrade recalls calling Rosati at home not too long ago and hearing Joshua saying to his mother, “Mommy, I want you forever.”

“That’s how we feel about Kelly,” Andrade said. “We want her forever.”