In March, in the middle of the Legislature’s 2025 regular session, legislative leaders asked members to reserve three weeks in the fall for special session: weeks beginning Aug. 25, Sept. 29 and Nov. 17. With all three weeks now behind us, I write to mourn the 2025 special session that never happened.

We began the 2025 regular session knowing the Trump regime would continue targeting our most vulnerable residents, our economy and our planet through attacks on equality, ICE raids, tax giveaways for the rich, tariffs and deregulation.

Many were disappointed with the outcome of the 2025 regular session. Senate President Ron Kouchi candidly graded the legislature’s work “I” for “Incomplete,” reinforcing expectations we would “complete” our work during special session.

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While the Legislature armed our attorney general with funds to challenge President Trump’s executive orders and set aside $50 million in grant-in-aid funds for nonprofits hit by federal cuts, we fell woefully short in raising sufficient revenue.

Except for the tourist “green fee,” we failed to pass revenue-generating bills or close tax loopholes benefiting only the rich and out-of-state investors. No increased conveyance taxes on luxury properties, no general excise tax surcharge on vacant homes, no tax-equity on capital gains, and no taxes on real estate investment trusts profits.

Grant-in-aid applications revealed federal cuts left nonprofits with over $150 million in shortages. We have not finished tallying the financial impacts on state agencies.

At the federal level, Republicans imposed hardships on our lowest income households while gifting our wealthiest 1% $47,000 in tax cuts beginning in 2026 by enacting their “One Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025.

At the local level, some Democrat lawmakers hoped we would pass bills that would capture a portion of those federal tax cuts to the rich and reroute them directly to Hawaiʻi. To collect additional revenue in 2026, we needed to follow the lead of federal Republicans and enact tax reforms in 2025. We did not.

Worse, Hawaiʻi’s 2024 “historic tax cuts” are already driving down 2025 tax collection; we’ll face even more reductions throughout 2026.

Two weeks ago, I informed House leadership that constituents wanted to know why special session hadn’t been confirmed. I heard three excuses: 1) too expensive, 2) no bills have been submitted, and 3) only two representatives support it.

Too expensive? Shouldn’t funds have been set aside in March when we calendared those three weeks?

No bills? Within days, I drafted three bills addressing problems outlined here. When I circulated them for input, House leadership quickly announced there would be no special session. What about the thousands of bills still alive in our biennial session — some specifically addressing concerns we hoped to tackle?

Insufficient support? Last month, the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi adopted an emergency resolution urging Democrat lawmakers to convene a special session to protect due process for immigrants and health care for women and trans people.

There are 42 Democrats in the House. Do only two of us pay attention to party resolutions? When 18% of Hawaii’s residents are immigrants, only two of us heard constituents begging for protections from ICE overreach?

We Failed The People

Recap: In March, legislative leaders directed members to block off three weeks for special session. In May, they made numerous media statements about it. In October, House leadership circulated talking points regarding a special session.

Leaders boldly touted a special session, then quietly let it slip away — no public explanation. They never polled members about scheduling a special session and never polled us about aborting it.

Why would they expect each member to proactively indicate our support? Perhaps more would have, knowing their silence would be cited as reason for its cancellation.

As we begin to hear legislative leaders use words like “prioritize,” “austerity” or “not enough,” remember how we failed to do the one job that only the legislative branch can do — raise revenue to cover government services.

As we read about neighbors being disappeared in ICE raids by masked agents in unmarked cars with no body cameras or legal observers ensuring due process, remember we could have done more, sooner, to provide greater safeguards.

Now we must wait until January 2026.

This failure hits home. My mother was 5 when she was imprisoned by federal agents for being Japanese American. When she spoke of her internment, I could hear the fear, pain and humiliation she experienced.

As a child, I wondered how her neighbors and other Americans could turn their backs on her, her family, and 130,000 others of Japanese, Italian, German or Korean descent. As an adult, I witness firsthand how fear, cowardice and complicity form a slippery slope to history repeating itself despite pledges to never let this happen again.

We must build a critical mass of courageous citizens willing to resist, inside the Capitol and out in the streets. We cannot accept an “Incomplete”; we must press forward — too many families are counting on us to get the job done.