Hawaii lawmakers eye help for Maui, housing and ethics ahead of 2024 session

Jan. 14—The rebuilding of Lahaina from the tragic Maui wildfires and shortage of homes for thousands of survivors have put into sharper focus the need in Hawaii for affordable housing to help keep local residents from moving to the mainland — issues that will weigh heavily as state lawmakers convene Wednesday for the opening of the 2024 legislative session.

"The public really wants us to deal with the state budget and meet the needs of Maui," said state Rep. David Tarnas, (D, Hawi-Waimea-­Waikoloa), who chairs the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. "Those will really be our priorities. There is less willingness to spend on new initiatives and new programs."

In general, legislators including state Sen. Brenton Awa, (R, Kaneohe-Laie-Mokuleia), like the intention underscoring much of Gov. Josh Green's first budget to "keep locals from leaving" by helping residents with housing and other ways to reduce costs.

"I'm really with the governor: 'Stop losing locals,'" Awa said.

Finding ways to help Maui wildfire survivors and the rebuilding of Lahaina will likely dominate this legislative session — the first session since the firestorm on Aug. 8 swept through the historic town, killing at least 100 people and destroying more than 3,000 buildings, most of them homes.

Awa likes Green's plan to create more long-term housing for survivors of the wildfires by converting short-term vacation rentals on Maui into long-term housing — and Green's threat to ban short-term rentals if at least 3,000 Maui property owners do not take advantage of zero property taxes and above-market rents to rent to evacuees.

Awa also would like to bar foreigners from buying agricultural lands across Hawaii like other states do — and hopes that mainland prohibitions on ag land sales to foreigners could even lead to barring nonresidents from buying homes in Hawaii.

"We need to keep locals from leaving and stop outsiders from displacing them," Awa said.

The Senate Democratic majority has prioritized its issues heading into the start of the session as emergency preparedness, recovery, and resiliency; workforce development and education; economic development and infrastructure; agriculture, environment, and natural resource management; and housing and homelessness.

"The Senate Majority is confident that, through hard-work and collaboration with our colleagues in the Senate Minority and House of Representatives, we will make significant progress on these important issues and provide much-needed assistance to our Maui Nui ohana as we navigate this recovery process together," Senate Majority Leader Dru Mamo Kanuha said in a statement.

House Democrats agree on the need to address the effects of the Maui wildfires and prevent future ones across the state; increasing affordable housing and reducing homelessness; boosting renewable energy; better addressing mental health needs; and adding more health care workers — especially for the needs of kupuna.

Proposals like charging tourists a fee to offset their impact on the environment are expected to be debated in bills and hearings through the session.

Both the public and lawmakers want to charge tourists some kind of fee to help fight against climate change and their impact on Hawaii's environment. But there's no clear consensus on how visitors should pay, including whether through a so-called visitor impact "license" or some modification of the transient accommodations, or hotel, tax, Tarnas said.

Ethics and campaign spending reforms will also come up this session as in previous years.

The Hawaii's Ethics and Campaign Spending commissions are drafting bills to further tighten ethics and campaign spending laws after the Legislature last year passed a host of new bills based on the recommendations of the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct after the public expressed widespread outrage over the federal convictions of former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his then-wife former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kea­loha; and federal guilty pleas by former Senate Majority Leader J. Kalani English and then-vice House finance chair Rep. Ty J.K. Cullen; followed by the 2022 federal indictment of former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Keith Kaneshiro.

Other potential bills to clamp down on ethics violations and campaign spending violations face an uncertain future — and support — in the Legislature.

Robert D. Harris, executive director and general counsel of the state Ethics Commission, served as vice chair of the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct, and voted against recommending term limits for state legislators as part of the commission's proposed bills last year following "a healthy discussion."

But a full-time Legislature could lead to preventing lawmakers from having second jobs and other ethics changes "that all get unlocked," Harris said.

So even though Harris initially opposed recommending a year-round legislative session, he said "the Legislature should look at it."

Bills to be introduced on behalf of the Ethics Commission include expanding lobbying restrictions to the executive branch, including for any cabinet-level official from deputy director on up; and requiring legislators to report any income from lobbyists rather than the current practice of only reporting overall income.

On Wednesday, state Sen. Karl Rhoads, (D, Nuuanu-­Downtown-Iwilei), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he plans to reintroduce his bill from last session to provide "full public financing of elections" that died during the end-of-session conference committee.

The idea would be to reduce political candidates' reliance on campaign donations to focus on the issues facing constituents.

In a statement, Rhoads said that "donors don't always line up with and represent the voters, especially in poorer districts. This bill makes it so you don't have to worry about some arbitrary group of donors and just focus on the people in your district."

Rep. Jeanne Kapela, (D, Volcano-Hawaiian Ocean View), plans to issue a House companion bill to support full public financing for candidates.

But Rhoads' counterpart in the House — Rep. Tarnas — said "the future's very cloudy in the House."

Instead, Tarnas supports expanding Hawaii's so-called partial-public, or public-private, financing of elections that allows candidates to match limited donations with public campaign funds.

Unlike full public financing of campaigns, Tarnas said the existing cost to the state for hybrid financing "is a whole lot less."

Asked about the possibility of term limits for legislators — just like their counterparts at Honolulu Hale across Punchbowl Street — Tarnas said, "there are certain individuals outside this building that like that. But it really doesn't have a chance. I don't think there's any evidence that term limits reduces corruption. The election is how we limit terms of legislators."

Still, Tarnas pledged to consider all bills aimed at reducing corruption and campaign spending violations because "we need to restore public trust."

Other than funding for Maui and second bites at bills that rolled over from 2023 to this year, political analysts Neal Milner expects that familiar efforts to legalize gambling and recreational marijuana will come up once again only to fail.

"A lot of it (legislative session) is going to be driven directly or indirectly by the fires, like housing," Milner said.

For causes like legalizing gambling and recreational marijuana, Milner said, "there really isn't solid, passionate support for them."

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