He received a scholarship to go to Mills School (now Mid-Pacific Institute) and graduated with a law degree from the University of Colorado.
Chuck Mau was a founder of the modern Democratic Party of Hawaii and an early advocate of Hawaiian statehood.
There, he passed a bill for rent-control in an attempt to ease the effects of World War II.
Mau was also a part of future Hawaii Governor John A. Burns's "Cell Gang" along with Ernest Isao Murai, Mits Kido, and Jack Kawano.
Along with others, the "cell gang" served as the planning group for what was to become the Hawaii Democratic Revolution of 1954, which permanently wrested control of state politics from landowners and Republican Party.