Wednesday marked the opening of the 2026 legislative session.
The Aloha State Daily team trekked to the Capitol for the start of the season, where we spoke to several organizations about their priorities this year.
Here’s what they’re focused on:
- Sherry Menor, president and CEO of Chamber of Commerce Hawai‘i, says for the Chamber’s 2030 Blueprint Legislative package, there are 22 bills and resolutions that are “being introduced to support the blueprint and to move our economy forward.”
“It touches technology, education, workforce development, cost of living and cost of doing business issues, all areas that we need to start now — actually yesterday — to move that needle to ensure that as we move forward, we build a much more thriving and sustainable economy,” she told ASD.
The 2030 Blueprint for Hawai‘i aims to “transform our state’s business landscape an ensure a secure economic future.” Read more about it here.
- Infrastructure is top of mind this year for Pacific Resource Partnership, a nonprofit that represents the Hawai‘i Regional Council of Carpenters, the largest construction union in the state, and more than 250 contractors.
“For this legislative session, Pacific Resource Partnership is really focusing on infrastructure because you can’t have new housing without infrastructure and our research has shown that having the homebuilder pay for infrastructure can add 30% or more to the cost of a home,” says Andrew Pereira, director of public affairs for PRP. “You’re talking about $200,000 or more, and that’s obviously a down payment. By using something like growth increment financing, where you take a vacant parcel and then you leverage the future property taxes to issue bonds for infrastructure, that allows you to get housing into the ground at a much lower cost, thus reducing the overall price of housing. We think it’s a viable solution for Hawai‘i’s housing crisis.”
Pereira says PRP is still researching whether a constitutional amendment would be required and if so, is working with some elected officials to have a bill “go through the legislative process and hopefully have that question placed before voters in November.”
But if a constitutional amendment isn’t necessary, he says PRP will work with the Legislature and counties “to see if we can get growth increment financing into place so that we can get the housing that we so desperately need here on O‘ahu and the Neighbor Islands.”
- Keiki are the focus for Hawai‘i Children’s Action Network.
“We will continue with our Keiki Caucus and so really looking at several bills for children and to support children,” says John-Paul Chaisson-Cardenas, the organization’s newly appointed executive director.
They’re also looking at topics like parental leave and other priorities, this year, he said.
“However, we are really interested this year in what’s happening both at the federal level and how we can mitigate it here within the state, including things like SNAP benefits, health access and even things like looking at what the effects of the dismantling of the Department of Education will do for Hawai‘i education.”
- Safe staffing is a priority for the Hawai‘i American Nurses Association.
Vice President Linda Beechinor says the organization is seeking legislation that will require hospitals to have a certain number of nurses for a certain number of patients staying in hospitals.
“The only reason that patients are in hospitals is for the nursing care and one of the problems that we have as nurses is that we are seen as a cost factor and so we get cut, cut, cut when there’s budget issues and that is the bottom line. We need to have quality patient care as a priority over the bottom line on the budget with the finance people.”
- The Hawai‘i State Teachers Association, which represents more than 13,000 public school teachers across the Islands, is working to protect its members financially.
“The big measure that we’re looking [at] right now is getting our teachers Covid hazard pay,” HSTA teacher lobbyist Sarah “Mili” Milianta-Laffin, an educator at ‘Ilima Intermediate School in ‘Ewa Beach, told ASD. “A lot of other unions in the state were given hazard pay for work during Covid, teacher were not. We’re trying to kind of fix that issue by making sure we compensate the teachers who were on the front lines during the pandemic, like they did in other states and other unions in our state, as well.”
With those financial protections, Milianta-Laffin says HSTA also will be asking to bring back automatic step increases for teachers.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
