STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1025

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 451

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 451, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE HAWAIIAN HOMES COMMISSION ACT,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to reduce the minimum Hawaiian blood quantum requirement of certain successors to lessees of Hawaiian home lands from one quarter to one thirty-second.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; Office of Hawaiian Affairs; Kalamaula Homestead Association; Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homelands Assembly; Ka Lāhui Hawaii Political Action Committee; Waiohuli Undivided Interest Lessees; Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs; Ho‘omana Pono, LLC; and numerous individuals.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Center for Hawaiian Sovereignty Studies.

     Your Committee finds that many descendants of lessees of Hawaiian home lands do not qualify as successors because interracial marriages and blended families produce descendants who are less than twenty-five percent Hawaiian.  These disruptions create undue hardships of displacement and interfere with families' abilities to maintain the equity of their homes and businesses.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by clarifying that it takes effect upon its approval by the Governor of the State of Hawaii and upon the consent of the United States Congress.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 451, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 451, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Hawaiian Affairs,

________________________________

MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair