Reflections on Hawaiʻi’s ‘historic’ legislative session shine bright
Of course great achievement can be easy when lawmakers who craft the state’s budget have an immense pile of money to allocate for operations, capital improvements, public worker pay raises, tax refunds and investments in long-underfunded areas such as producing homesteads for Native Hawaiians, affordable housing, pension funding and savings.
All these things, and more, got infusions that often were extraordinary this year.
Lawmakers, who passed upward of 320 bills, representing the most in a decade, also found the political will to act on a couple of highly controversial issues: the state’s minimum wage and Mauna Kea management.
The minimum wage bill incrementally increases the current $10.10 hourly minimum to $18 in 2028, which business interests opposed as too high and too fast. For Mauna Kea, a new management authority is to replace the University of Hawaii in an effort to find mutual stewardship respecting the desires of many Hawaiians to protect the mountain as well as continued use of the summit for astronomy.
