Hawaii’s watersheds and coral reefs would be recognized as “legal persons” with legal rights; high school robotics could become an interscholastic sport; military live-fire training would be banned on state land; and a new fee would be charged on any “sugar-sweetened” beverages under new House and Senate bills to be considered during the legislative session that’s scheduled to adjourn May 8.
They join the original flurry of bills introduced in the opening days of the current session that would ban cellphones in public schools, provide free school meals for every public school student, prevent law enforcement officers from covering their faces, bar the Hawaii National Guard from helping federal agents deport immigrants in the state, make another effort to prohibit nepotism in the Legislature and Judiciary and give citizens the power to decide contentious issues themselves.
Legislators introduced 2,457 new bills this session by last week’s deadline, in addition to hundreds of older bills that stalled during the 2025 session and automatically rolled into the current one.
The new bills include Senate Bill 3323, which would make Hawaii’s watersheds and coral reef ecosystems “legal persons with inherent and inalienable rights to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.”
It also authorizes “citizen enforcement, restorative and injunctive remedies, civil penalties, and continuing duties of ecological repair, including for historic harms.”
House Bill 2541 would prohibit discrimination based on a person’s immigration status and joins other bills aimed at ongoing federal immigration efforts in Hawaii and around the country that continue to draw protests, especially in Minneapolis, where masked and unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents traveling in unmarked vehicles have shot and killed two demonstrators.
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Hawaii is the most diverse state in the nation, with immigrants making up about 20% of the state’s population of 1.4 million people, according to HB 2541.
“The purpose of this Act,” according to the bill, “is to prohibit discrimination based on a person’s immigration status.”
Under HB 2445, the state Department of Education would be required to develop a standardized emergency response plan for immigration enforcement activities on or near public schools across the state.
A separate proposal, HB 2129, would ban all law enforcement officers from covering their faces and require them to wear apparel that identifies their law enforcement agency. It also would require all state and county agencies to limit sharing immigration-related personal data and prohibits “immigration-based harassment or threats, including unwarranted verification of an individual’s immigration status with respect to employment or the provision of services to the public.”
All state and county law enforcement officers also would be required “to monitor civil immigration enforcement activity by activating body cameras when present in a situation in which United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are interacting with a member of the general public.”
HB 1886 also would require standards regarding facial coverings and identification, and would further require “that when federal law enforcement officers arrest a person without a warrant, that it is done so in their personal capacity.”
HB 1839 requires state and county law enforcement agencies to “notify an individual in the custody of a state or county law enforcement agency of their rights before any interview with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement pertaining to certain matters regarding civil immigration violations can commence.”
Education bills
Other bills to be considered this session include HB 2534, which would provide unspecified funding to the state DOE to make robotics competition an interscholastic sport to encourage STEM education and learning.
“Since the first robotics program was established at Waialua High School in 1999, the State has embraced robotics technology as both an educational and a competitive platform,” according to the bill. “… A majority of high school robotics alumni are employed in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. However, the legislature finds that the State lacks a long-term science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce. According to data from the department of business, economic development, and tourism, a higher percentage of Hawaii-born students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics occupations live in the continental United States than in the State. By supporting robotics programs, the State can stimulate economic growth and ensure Hawaii’s youth have access to stable career paths.”
Two bills, SB 3122 and HB 2303, would require the state Board of Education to update “content and performance standards to reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test.”
HB 2234 proposes that voters across the state decide whether to decentralize the BOE into individual county school boards.
HB 2210, HB 2016 and SB 2755 would require the University of Hawaii Board of Regents to waive tuition for any qualifying Native Hawaiian students enrolled in any of UH’s 10 campuses.
Sugar, rent and more
>> SB 2458 and HB 2146 would add a 2-cent-per-ounce “fee on all sugar-sweetened beverages sold in the State and requires all distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages to register with the Department of Health.”
>> HB 2185 would authorize the state Attorney General to represent public and private school sports officials in civil proceedings if they have been assaulted or threatened while performing their duties. It would make it a class B felony to intentionally cause a sports official bodily injury and includes school and league administrators as school sports officials.
>> HB 2309 would allow nieces and nephews who are at least one-quarter Native Hawaiian as successors for Department of Hawaiian Home Lands lease transfers.
>> HB 2481 makes another attempt to expand private and public efforts into a state program to return mainland homeless people to relatives or friends who are willing to take care of them on the mainland. Although the overwhelming majority of Hawaii’s homeless have roots in the islands, the bill would “establish a permanent Return-to-Home Program to return homeless individuals in the State to families and relatives in their home states.”
>> HB 2427 also allows homeless youth, including runaways, to enroll in public schools and participate in all school activities.
>> HB 2105 would put a 3% annual cap on annual rent increases and would prohibit any increases in the first 12 months.
>> HB 2569 would allow outdoor advertising “devices, including digital outdoor signage devices, to be allowed within the Waikiki Special District and … within the Stadium Development District.” At the same time, SB 2004 would increase penalties for violating state laws against billboards “or any outdoor advertising device.”
Pedestrian safety
Multiple bills are aimed at protecting pedestrians in crosswalks, including HB 2213 and SB 2992, which specify that drivers must wait until a pedestrian has crossed halfway through a crosswalk “plus an additional lane of the roadway” before proceeding.
HB 2163 and SB 2609 would require drivers to wait until pedestrians make it entirely through a crosswalk. HB 2186 additionally creates new penalties for injuring pedestrians, especially if they are in school zones or are visually impaired.
>> HB 1963 would make it a crime to disclose “intimate or private images” and calls for extended prison terms for anyone who attempts to commit “the nonconsensual disclosure of intimate or private images against a minor or vulnerable adult (that) resulted in the victim’s death.”
>> HB 1938 would make it illegal to use fireworks in the presence of anyone under age 16 without a permit.
>> HB 2428 would ask voters statewide through a constitutional amendment whether they want to set a term limit of 24 years for state legislators, who are the only elected state or county officials who face no term limits.
>> HB 1932 would ask Hawaii voters if they want to vote on a constitutional amendment that would say “that the inherent and inalienable right of the people, including future generations, to clean water and air, a healthful environment and climate and healthy native ecosystems and beaches, shall be protected and shall not be infringed.”
>> HB 1916, HB 2100 and SB 2534 also would ask voters if they want a constitutional amendment that would prohibit military “live-fire training exercises on public trust lands.”
In the same vein, SB 2758 would prohibit the Board of Land and Natural Resources from extending leases “allowing the live-fire training and bombing of public lands, except for a one-time extension of up to five years to phase out existing leases allowing the live‑fire training and bombing of public lands.”
But the bill would exclude lands reserved for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands “or lands designated for return to the State from the one-time extension.”
Public corruption
>> SB 2661 and HB 2110 would require Hawaii’s legislative and judicial branches to follow the same anti-nepotism rules the Legislature already imposed on the executive branch, counties and Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
>> HB 2123 would extend the statute of limitations for misconduct by a “public servant” by up to 10 years.
>> HB 2124 would make it a misdemeanor to fail to report bribery, as the Legislature continues to buzz over who among them may be the unidentified legislator that an FBI informant alleged accepted $35,000 in cash in a paper bag.
All 76 state senators and representatives have denied they are the person or know who it may be, according to House Speaker Nadine Nakamura and Senate President Ron Kouchi.
Changes to holidays
Several more official state holidays and unofficial “days of observance” would be enshrined, along with renaming Statehood Day through various bills that include:
>> HB 2028, which would provide employers with a refundable tax credit if they give construction workers a paid Labor Day holiday. SB 3196 also would include the tax credit as long as employers pay their construction workers at twice their normal rate for working on Labor Day.
>> HB 2045 would rename Statehood Day as La Hoihoi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day.
>> SB 3200 would create a new state holiday designating Oct. 28 as Immigrants Day and demote Statehood Day to a “day of recognition.”
>> HB 1905 would observe each May 22 as Maritime Day “to preserve Hawaii’s maritime history and celebrate the contributions of port operations and maritime workers to Hawaii’s economy and culture.”
