STAND. COM. REP. NO. 358

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 895

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 895 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 require that all newly created, replaced, or reprinted state and county documents, letterheads, symbols, and emblems contain accurate, appropriate, and authentic Hawaiian names and language.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and three individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.

     Your Committees find that in recent decades, great strides have been made to bring about a renaissance of the Hawaiian language.  In order to continue that momentum and perpetuate the Hawaiian language, its usage must become normalized.  This measure would be one more step to normalize the usage of the Hawaiian language.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Adding language proposed by the Department of the Attorney General providing that any error of punctuation or diacritical marking in a document shall not render that document unenforceable; and

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive changes for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     Your Committees notes that the amendment identified in paragraph (1) was not incorporated into the Hawaiian language portion of this measure.  Therefore, if your Committee on Ways and Means chooses to hear this measure and vote to pass this measure out while retaining the amending language in paragraph (1), your Committee on Ways and Means may want to consider inserting identical Hawaiian language in the appropriate section of this measure.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 895, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 895, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Hawaiian Affairs and Government Operations,

____________________________ DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair

____________________________ MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair