STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2022

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2162

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2162 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the Judiciary to establish long-term Hawaiian language resources and capacity building to train experts in the Hawaiian language field.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Judiciary, the University of Hawai‘i System, the Institute of Hawaiian Language Research and Translation at the University of Hawaii, the College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Kamehameha Schools, Aha Punana Leo, the Kalihi Palama Hawaiian Civic Club, the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, and seventeen individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Adding a Hawaiian language translation of the measure contents;

     (2)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2016; and

     (3)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2162, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2162, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

________________________________ MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair