By the time the 2026 legislative session wrapped up on Friday, lawmakers had passed a bold initiative to restrict corporate money in Hawaiʻi elections.

The innovative legal effort, the first of its kind in the country to make it this far, would sidestep the politically unpopular Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court ruling that in 2010 allowed unlimited amounts of money to flow to political action committees that support or oppose candidates and ballot measures, also called independent expenditure committees and super PACs.

While the bill is not expected to have much impact on union political spending, it could rein in the money that flows through Pacific Resource Partnership to super PACs that have spent millions on elections for more than a decade, key lawmakers say.

Senate Bill 2471, the Citizens United bill, also still needs to win the approval of Gov. Josh Green, who was helped into office as lieutenant governor and governor with heavy spending by PRP.

Good-government advocates were delighted with the passage of SB 2471 — even sending around press releases that enthusiastically and erroneously overstated what the measure would do.

But lawmakers also abandoned dozens of ideas to strengthen government accountability, transparency and ethics. A highly publicized effort to curb pay-to-play politics in candidates’ own campaigns died again after changes were made by the Senate Ways and Means Committee without any public discussion.

In the end, lawmakers continued to resist measures that would change a political system that favors incumbents and helps them stay in office.

Legislators agreed to modestly beef up the state’s program for partially funding election campaigns for candidates unable to raise money from private donors, a program few if any candidates have used. They banned top state officials such as department heads from hosting campaign fundraisers. And they made voter registration automatic when applying for a driver’s license or state ID card.

University of Hawaiʻi political science professor Colin Moore, a close observer of legislative policy and politics, calls the 2026 session “a mixed bag” although he says the Citizens United bill is a big deal.

Hawaiʻi’s been on a slow but steady path of political reform since 2023, when a bribery scandal that sent two lawmakers to federal prison sparked dozens of election and political crackdowns. Each year since then a few things pass but nothing game-changing in the last three years.

Moore notes that even in 2023 “it was the easiest low-hanging fruit that went through.” Since then lawmakers have found it impossible to pass “the ones that are hardest — the ones that target individual incumbents’ power … bills that upset the incumbents’ advantage over challengers,” he says.

He pointed specifically to a perennial effort that would end the practice of lawmakers’ giving each other campaign contributions by allowing them to buy two tickets to fundraisers. That failed again this year.

Even bills like putting some more money to a partial public campaign financing program, which really just adjusts for inflation since it was last updated decades ago, or a ban on corporate money for super PACs doesn’t directly take away an incumbent’s advantage or change how lawmakers operate, Moore says.

To that end, legislators also again rejected efforts to ban campaign contributions during session. Currently, elected officials can accept contributions during session, they just can’t hold organized fundraising events. Registered lobbyists can’t make donations during session but other people can.

Bribery was as much front and center in 2026 as it was in 2023 and still the Legislature did little to improve the state’s ability to deal with bribery. In January, as the session was getting underway, lawmakers spoke openly of a “dark cloud” hanging over this year’s session as a criminal investigation into a mystery lawmaker who may have taken $35,000 in bribes was publicly widening. A citizen watchdog filed a petition with nearly 1,000 signatures asking the Legislature to undertake its own investigation.

In February the state Attorney General’s Office stepped into an FBI case to take on the latest allegations. Soon after that, Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke acknowledged she’d failed to report $10,000 in campaign contributions until years later and that the FBI might have thought she was the mystery lawmaker. In April she ended her bid for reelection and took an unpaid leave of absence in the face of the AG’s investigation.

And still, by the time lawmakers gaveled out last week little had been done to crack down on legislative misconduct. Only one bill relating to bribery survived of the nine rolled out in January and that one simply extends the statute of limitations to nine years. More severe penalties for bribery failed, among other measures that would have required reporting of public servants who accept bribes.

Lawmakers also refused to take up the citizen petition’s request to undertake their own inquiry. And a bill that would have created a new office of legislative ethics never even got a hearing.

Two big initiatives that would change the campaign finance and election system in Hawaiʻi started with much fanfare then failed to get approval despite broad public support and robust testimony.

House Bill 1519 and Senate Bill 2530 were this year’s version of curbing pay-to-play politics by banning campaign contributions from state contractors and nonprofits that get money from the state including executives and family members of the companies and organizations.

The House bill was flawed from the start because it only restricted contributions to candidates in the branch of government overseeing the contract, and since the Legislature doesn’t really oversee many contracts it would have been unfair to governor and lieutenant governor candidates while doing nothing to stop donations to legislative candidates.

The Senate bill, which was supported by the Campaign Spending Commission, was at one point stripped and replaced with the language of the House bill by Rep. David Tarnas. Sen. Karl Rhoads restored the Senate language into the House bill but Senate Ways and Means Chair Donovan Dela Cruz changed it out again and even made it worse by requiring that money to implement the bill be taken from an already meager fund used to pay for partially funding candidates in some races.

The bill never really resurfaced after that and kept getting rolled over in conference committee until it ran out of time.

Lawmakers also rejected efforts to address running out of time, which happens every year. Bills to extend the legislative sessions past early May or even create a year-round Legislature died.

Bills that would have expanded the list of state officials required to disclose basic financial information to the public failed. But so did one that would have let UH regents off the hook from disclosure, a requirement that has been in place for years. The mandate is aimed at identifying conflicts of interest for members of boards and commissions as well as leaders of state agencies.

As usual, most bills that would have sent questions to the November ballot to be directly decided on by voters failed to get through. That included whether the retirement age for judges should be increased from 70 to 75, whether recreational adult cannabis use should be allowed, imposing term limits on legislators, implementing a statewide citizens initiative process and others.

Lawmakers did agree on one proposed constitutional amendment, passing a bill to ask voters whether counties should be allowed to issue bonds to pay for housing and shelter.

Green has until June 30 to announce any potential vetoes, and then until July 15 to issue a final veto list or let bills become law without his signature. The Legislature could then choose to hold a one-day special session that same day to override any vetoes.

Our list of Sunshine Bills included more than 200 at the start of session. In the end, 15 received final approval of the Legislature including one that already has been signed by the governor. The list could get even shorter depending on what Green decides.

Here’s what passed. The brief descriptions are just that — shorthand for what the bill is basically about. Please use the highlighted link to go to the bill for the details and get much more information including links to hearings on Civil Beat’s Digital Democracy site or the Legislature’s website.

CIVIL BEAT SUNSHINE BILLS — The Final List:

SB 2471 – Citizens United: Corporations/artificial persons can’t participate in elections (Rhoads)

HB 2050 – Campaign Spending Commission Package – Increases the expenditure limit and the amount of partial public campaign financing (Nakamura, by request) 

SB 2247 – State Ethics Commission Package: Prohibits top state officials from hosting fundraisers (Kouchi, by request) 

SB 2494 – Statute of limitations for bribery expands to nine years (Keahokalole) 

SB 2519 – Pushes deadline for getting law enforcement standards in place til 2028 (Kouchi, by request) 

SB 2239 – Automatic voter registration when working with some state agencies (Chang) 

SB 2466 – Chief election officer can only be terminated for cause (Rhoads) 

SB 2143 – Attorney general fills in as chief election officer if position becomes vacant (Rhoads) 

SB 2532 – Campaign Spending Commission Package:  Submit campaign finance forms electronically (Kouchi, by request)

SB 2397 – Changes definition of quorum for neighborhood boards to be a majority of all seats that are filled (Fukunaga)

SB 3001 – AI services disclosure (Keohokalole)

HB 1753 – Requires social media platforms to provide easy way for users to permanently delete their accounts and any information (Templo) 

SB 2135 – Makes nonconsensual distribution of intimate images a crime (Elefante) 

HB 2137 – Prevents harmful use and mandates AI disclosure in advertising (M. Lee)

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT:

SB 3219 – Allows counties to issue bonds to pay for housing infrastructure (Hashimoto)

SIGNED BY GOVERNOR

HB 2099 – Office of Elections Package: More time for filling legislative vacancies (Nakamura, by request)