Rep. Scot Matayoshi has been trying to ban flavored vaping, session after session, with little to show for it. Speaking to local media at the State Capitol late last month, however, he said he wasn’t giving up.

“Well, here we are again,” he told reporters as he introduced House Bill 1563 to ban flavored nicotine products. “Anyone who knows me knows I’m very passionate about this issue.”

The issue, in his view, is at a crisis level: damage to the developing brains of island youth. Matayoshi pointed out that nicotine is so addictive that the United States banned flavored cigarettes years ago because manufacturers targeted kids. But flavored vaping is still legal.

“It frustrates me that we have not been able to do something about this clear epidemic going through our school systems, going through our population,” he said. “We have a whole other generation of kids and adults that are becoming addicted to nicotine again, and we’re unable to do something about it. So I’m hopeful that this year the Legislature is going to act.”

What may help passage of the vaping bill this time around is the solid backing of the Keiki Caucus, a bipartisan hui of legislators that is backing a half-dozen measures this year. Other priority bills include ones expanding access to free school meals in charter schools, improving responses to youth mental health challenges and setting up regulations for e-bikes.

At the Keiki Caucus press conference Jan. 28 in the Capitol Rotunda, Matayoshi stood with many of his colleagues, some wearing colored paper lei like the ones kids make in schools or holding bright signs stating things like “Say NO! To Flavored Vapes.” It made for a good photo op and managed to land on the evening news and social media.

Legislative caucuses are a popular vehicle to get the word out on important issues and to counter powerful lobbies trying to defeat bills. While not a guarantee of passage, they can make the difference in becoming law.

The opposition can be formidable. One of the Top 10 bills lobbied on in the 2025 session, House Bill 756, would have banned flavored nicotine products.

That bill was Matayoshi’s, too, but it was snuffed out by opposition from retailers including ABC Stores and Retail Merchants of Hawaii and advocacy groups such as the Hawaii Smokers Alliance. And the national tobacco industry’s Altria lobby has long donated to legislators to influence the outcome of cigarette and vape legislation.

This time, with the help of the caucus, Matayoshi has nearly doubled the number of co-sponsors for his vaping bill. Several of them are members of the House Finance Committee, which is the final hurdle for HB 1563 to move over to the Senate. The deadline for it to be heard in Finance is March 6, when the 2026 session nears its halfway mark.

Try, Try Again

There are around two dozen caucuses that submit legislative packages every session, though some are inactive. Among the most consistent are the Keiki Caucus, the Women’s Legislative Caucus and the Working Families Caucus.

Like the Keiki Caucus, the women’s and working families groups also held well-attended press conferences late last month. To not stretch themselves thin, the caucuses are limited to five bills per session (or 10, when there are identical companion bills in both chambers).

In addition to raising awareness of important bills — no small feat, given that there are around 3,000 introduced every year and only 10% become law — a caucus also works with respected outside groups and individuals to garner greater support.

The vaping bill, for example, has the backing of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaiʻi Youth Council, while the e-bikes bills are supported by the Hawaiʻi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The caucuses also work to learn what prevented a bill from passing in previous sessions and then incorporate the necessary language in new legislation. In the case of the e-bikes measure, House Bill 1564, its author Rep. Darius Kila said he worked with the Attorney General’s Office to craft a bill that addressed the AG’s constitutional concerns. A similar bill was vetoed by the governor last year.

HB 1574 and its Senate companion did not make the deadline last week. But a very similar e-bikes measure, House Bill 2021, is alive and poised to move soon from the House to the Senate.

That’s Kila’s bill, too, and he said it is common for multiple bills to be introduced in order to increase the chances that at least one of them will survive. The issue also received more public awareness after last session because of an increase in the number and severity of e-bike accidents.

“The Keiki Caucus saw during the legislative interim how much people were impacted by the non-regulation of e-bikes, and they understood that I would be working on my own bill,” he said Tuesday.

‘Different Avenues’

Caucuses take other approaches as well to keep promising ideas alive.

The Working Families Caucus, for example, is not pushing a paid family leave bill this year — a proposal that has died several sessions in a row now. Instead, it unveiled a package that emphasizes tax credits to help with household and dependent care services.

“On average, child care in Hawaiʻi costs more than $13,000 a year per child,” Nicole Woo of Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network said at the caucus press conference Jan. 29. “For many parents, that is as much as their rent. As a result, too many families are leaving Hawaiʻi because they just can’t afford to stay.”

The legislation Woo is supporting, House Bill 2007, awaits a hearing in House Finance.

And there is a paid family leave bill still alive, too — House Bill 2306. It’s authored by Rep. Jackson Sayama and co-sponsored by members of the Working Families Caucus.

Rep. Jeanné Kapela, caucus co-convener, acknowledges that her group was using “a different avenue” to help families. But she said the uncertain fiscal situation with the federal government has made things even tougher for local families.

“Whether it’s family leave, child care, sick leave, we have to find a way to not only plug the gaps that have been left by the federal government, but also to increase additional revenue so that we can fund the future that Hawaiʻi deserves, including things like paid sick and family leave,” she said at the press conference.

“I think that we keep shooting for north stars, even when things feel austere,” she said. “We have to fight for the better future that Hawaiʻi deserves. And this is just one pathway that we’re trying to do, and it also means that everyone here we will keep fighting for supporting and supporting those bills as they move.”

Caucuses also build on past legislative success to advance related causes. The Women’s Legislative Caucus this year is promoting Senate Bill 2845, which would prohibit a person from interfering with another person’s access to or from a health care facility, or disrupting the facility’s work.

At a press conference at the Richards Street YWCA on Jan. 28, Sen. Joy San Buenaventura said the bill builds on the 2023 Hawaiʻi law that clarified the right of a pregnant woman to obtain an abortion or terminate a pregnancy and responds to action from other state. That law was prompted by the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned a women’s federal right to abortion.

The law, said San Buenaventura, “doesn’t stop the pro-life advocates from trying to intimidate those who want to access these abortion services, and you see them right along Beretania Street trying to stop people,” referring to the Planned Parenthood of Honolulu offices. “So this one basically makes it a petty misdemeanor, and it also gives a right of action so they can pursue (justice).”