Prime targets: The Blog is the first to admit we like to write about all the things lawmakers fail to do when it comes to political reform. But here’s something they did do that is finally paying off.

In 2023, in the aftershock of federal bribery convictions for two legislators who took a lot of money to sway bills, the Legislature passed a law requiring lobbyists to list all the bills they were going to be lobbying on rather than just naming general areas of interest. It was one of the first meaningful lobbying reforms in decades.

Thanks to major technology improvements put in place over the last few years by the State Ethics Commission, even The Blog was able to go online and look at the data. (OK, so The Blog still needed a little help from ace reporter Blaze Lovell, who has made analyzing political data one of his things.)

A Special Commentary Project

Civil Beat opinion writers are closely following efforts to bring more transparency and accountability to state and local government — at the Legislature, the county level and in the media. Help us by sending ideas and anecdotes to sunshine@civilbeat.org.

Read More

On March 31, lobbying organizations — the entities that lobbyists work for — filed for the first time ever forms that listed every bill they were following. The system still isn’t perfect. The March 31 reports only list bills that were of interest for the first two months of session, Jan. 1-Feb. 28. We have to wait til the June 2 filing to find out what bills were hot and heavy for the last two months of session, March 1-April 30. And even then there are still two days left unaccounted for since session didn’t end until May 2. But, baby steps are still steps.

We’ll put it all together once the June reports are in, but here’s a look at what bills drew the most attention for the first half of session. For context, there were about 500 lobbying organizations registered this year but, as investigative reporter Ian Lind notes in a recent blog post, there are only about a dozen or so top lobbyists and organizations. And there were, of course, more than 3,100 bills to lobby on at the start of session.

The most watched bill? House Bill 982 which would have created a working group to study establishing a wildfire compensation fund to pay people who lose property in future fires. It passed the House then died when it failed to get a hearing in Senate Ways and Means. The data shows 27 lobbying organizations had that bill on their list. Another 20 listed the companion Senate Bill 1201 as a lobbying target, also dead early on thanks to lack of a WAM hearing.

House Bill 755, the paid family leave measure, was the second-most watched with 22 organizations paying attention. Opposed by unions, businesses and state agencies, it died too when it failed to get a hearing in House Finance.

Tied for No. 3 on our list with 21 organizations lobbying were House Bill 300, the main state budget, and two measures that came down to the wire but also passed: House Bill 1369, which repealed a raft of tax credits, and House Bill 420, that clarified how claims against construction contractors are handled.

Others on The Blog’s Top 10 list of most-lobbied bills include House Bill 756, which would ban flavored nicotine products (dead), House Bill 504, another version of a green fee (dead), House Bill 739 to provide money to counties for the Kamaaina Homes program (dead), and Senate Bill 1281 and it’s companion, House Bill 557, extending the sunset date for telehealth reimbursements. The Senate bill passed, the House bill died.

Other bills of interest to a dozen or more lobbying organizations included a proposed ban on tobacco products, the securitization bill that did pass (Senate Bill 897), the green fee, the bill that would have allowed the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to develop Kakaʻako Makai, an increase in cigarette taxes and an increase in free public school lunches.

Watch for a more extensive analysis in June of what bills caught the interest of lobbyists who were paid to support or oppose them this session.

You want to know what?: Legislative leaders did something of a don’t-ask, don’t-tell tour this last week when reporters and others demanded to know why much-anticipated legislation died this year. In fact, Senate leadership canceled its post-session media briefing altogether so it could join a House-Senate sing-along. The Blog is not making this up.

On Wednesday, when House Finance chair Kyle Yamashita was asked why the House pay-to-play bill failed to get approval from, well, him, he danced.

“Well, at the end of the day, those are some of the things that get caught up in negotiations, and we were not, at the end of the day, able to come to an agreement on that bill,” Yamashita said. “We just couldn’t get an agreement. I’ll just keep it at that.”

What about public campaign finance?

“Well, at the end of the day, I think that that happens with many bills where we just don’t have agreement in the final hours,” he said.

On Friday, House Speaker Nadine Nakamura took things further, again without really saying anything.

“I would just tell the advocates for these bills to continue to work on them, she said. “You know, the really difficult bills, good bills, prepaid health care, workers compensation, all of these difficult bills, took six to seven years to pass. The compassion and dying act took almost 20 years. It takes time for bills to get through the process, and I would just encourage them to stick by it and reintroduce the bills next year. Let’s have further discussion, refine the bills and see where it goes from there.”

Well, the pay-to-play bill restricting campaign donations from people with state contracts has been on the agenda at least four or five years now. Same with public financing of elections. Does Nakamura really believe that important improvements in accountability and transparency should take 20 years?

Policy particulars: Starting Monday, Civil Beat will launch “2025 Progress Report,” a weeklong series of stories on the legislative session. We’ll be looking at a handful of the state’s most pressing issues to evaluate what happened, what didn’t and where we go from here.

Our list is not intended to be comprehensive. Instead, we’ll be sharing insights in areas where our reporters have them, through deeper sourcing or expertise from their past coverage. We’ll offer up aspects of legislative action — or inaction — that we think you may find particularly interesting or that have special and perhaps less obvious impacts on all of our lives. Watch daily for this logo.

Media matters: President Donald Trump’s executive order this week cutting funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System could make big waves here in the islands. Both Hawaiʻi Public Radio and PBS Hawaiʻi rely on federal money to some extent to fuel their operations here.

Hawaiʻi Public Radio President and CEO Meredith Artley posted a piece on the station’s website saying HPR gets about 6% of its budget, or $525,000, from the feds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She expects already allocated funding for 2026 and 2027 to continue, but after that the future is murky.

A similar note to viewers on PBS Hawaiʻi says about 20% of its revenue comes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.