Conference Committee

Good morning, everyone. It is Thursday, April 23, 2026. It's 9am. We're in Conference Room 016. I'm opening this joint conference committee between the House Labor Committee and the Senate Labor and Technology Committee. First on the agenda, we have HB 2271, HD 2, SD 1, making emergency appropriations for public employment cost items. For the House, we have myself and Representative Lee as Co-Chairs, Reyes Oda as Manager.

Thank you. Happy conference to you. Welcome. On behalf of the Senate, it's Senator Elefante, me, as Chair, Co-Chair is Senator Kanuha, and Member Ihara.

Alright. So I believe we're just waiting on FIN WAM. We could roll this over to tomorrow?

Yes. Tomorrow.

Same time. Same. So 9am, Room 16.

April 24. Yep. That works for us. Great.

Alright. Next one. HB 2272, HD 1, SD 1, making emergency appropriations for public employment cost items. For the House, we have myself and Rep Lee as Co-Chairs, Reyes Oda as Manager.

On behalf of the Senate is myself, Elefante, as Chair, Co-Chair Kanuha, and Member Ihara.

Alright. Same thing with this one. We'll be rolling this over to tomorrow, April 24, 9am, Conference Room 16.

Yep. That works for us. Great.

Okay. Next, HB 2273, HD 1, SD 1, making emergency appropriations for public employment cost items. For the House, we have myself, Rep Lee as Co-Chairs, Reyes Oda as Manager.

On behalf of the Senate, myself, Elefante, as Chair, Kanuha as Co-Chair, Ihara as a Member.

Okay. Same thing. We'll be rolling over this measure till tomorrow, 9am, Conference Room 16.

Yep. That works for us. Great. Okay.

Next, we have SB 99 S D one h d one, relating to government. Oh, I'm sorry. Since this is Senate bill, did you wanna Yeah.

We'll go ahead and do that. So on behalf of the thank you. On behalf of the Senate, it's myself, Elefante as chair. Cochairs are Moriwaki and La Masa.

For the house, we have myself, Repley as cochairs, Ray Zola as manager.

And I believe on this one, chair, we do have an agreement on the proposed CD one Yes. Which would just be a clean date. Yes. And I think we shared a copy with you on that. Is that correct?

Okay. So believe we also still need a WAM fin release on this. We did send this over as a memo. We still haven't heard back. So could we roll this over to tomorrow, 04/24/2026, at 9am here in Conference Room 16?

Yes.

Yes. That sounds good. K.

And then for our last, measure that we have on this agenda is Senate Bill 3131, Senate Draft 1, House Draft 1. This is relating to personnel. On behalf of the Senate, it's myself, Elefante as Chair, co-Chairs, McKelvey and Rhoads, and Member Moriwaki.

Thank you for the House, we have myself, Lee as Chair, and Members Ratcliffe and Alcos.

K. And I believe we have for this one, we do have an agreement. There's no WAM or FIN designation on this. So we just would just need to, have a clean date of we'll take the HD 1 language and a clean date, and we'll accept 07/01/2026. Does that work for you folks?

That works. Thank you.

Okay. And I believe we do have Quorum on our end. Do you have Quorum on your end?

Yes.

Okay. And we can vote this vote on this. K. Members, we are voting. We just read over the proposed amendments for that.

This is on Senate Bill 3131, Senate Draft One, House Draft 1. We're gonna agree to a Conference Draft on this. I will take the vote for the Senate. [Roll Call] Right. Oh, Senator McKelvey is here. We'll come back to him. [Roll Call] Senator McKelvey, this is on SB 3131, Okay. Alright.

And, Chair Lee, may I take the vote for the House?

Sure.

Okay.

Oh, for procedure, we're going to summarize.

Oh, yes. Sorry. You guys do have a procedure. Go ahead.

This bill updates state position titles by changing private secretary to executive assistant and secretary to administrative assistant where applicable.

Thank you.

K.

Thank you.

Thank you for reading that. Okay. On for the House [ Roll Call ]

Please go ahead.

K. We have a bill. Thank you, Members. Alright. Yeah. We have to adjourn. Hello? Yeah. Yep.

Okay. We are adjourned.

Good afternoon. Convening our Conference Committee meeting, Thursday, April 23, 2026, 3:35pm. This is House Bill 1752, House Draft 1, Senate Draft 1, relating to emergency medical services. On the House side, I have myself, Chair Tarnas as Co-Chair, Representatives Iwamoto and Souza as Managers.

Okay. On behalf of the Senate, myself as Chair and Co-Chair San Buenaventura and Member Hashimoto.

Thank you, Senator. I think we have a bill. This measure replaces the adjutant general on the Hawaii Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee with the administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.

We pass across to you a CD 1 that has an effective date of July 1, 2026. We took that from the Senate Draft 1. And, otherwise, this is really just kind of a housekeeping measure. If you're good with this, I believe we can vote on this measure.

Excellent. I think we would love to proceed as expeditiously as we can.

Very good. So if I can be able to take the vote on House Bill 1752, House Draft 1, Senate Draft 1, Conference Draft 1. [Roll Call] We have a bill. Thank you.

Yeah. David's got the script.

We can adjourn.

Good afternoon. We are conferencing here in Conference Room 016. It's Thursday, April 23 at 4pm, and we are meeting to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of Senate Bill 2138, House Draft 1, relating to the Hawaii National Guard state tuition assistance program. And on behalf of the Senate, myself as Chair, Co-Chairs Kim and Lee are excused.

And on our side, we have myself, Co-Chair Morikawa, Representative Garrett excused, and Manager Iwamoto here, Representative Souza excused.

Okay. I believe we would need to move our meeting today or we need to address some of the differences. We are looking at Friday, April 24 at 1:40pm as a possible meeting time. Is that acceptable to the House?

Yes. That's acceptable to the House.

Okay. Thank you very much. We will... In the same room. Conference Room 016. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Have a proposal for you to review.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you. We are adjourned.

Welcome to the Conference Committee hearing. We're meeting, Conference Committee meeting. We're reconvening. Here we are. This is Thursday, April 23, 2pm in Conference Room 325 for the purpose of considering numerous measures that we previously heard yesterday.

Thank you to the Senators for being here. Appreciate your participation in this. We couldn't do it without you. So first up, we have House Bill 2050, HD 1, SD 1, relating to partial public financing of elections. On behalf of the House, we have Tarnas and Perruso Co-Chairs and Belatti, Poepoe, and Garcia Managers.

Thank you. For the Senate, it's myself as Chair and Co-Chair Kim and Manager Awa.

Thank you. On this measure, we had agreed to an HD 1. We agreed to a Conference Draft 1, which is basically House Draft 1 with a clean date. We have requested FIN release. We have not gotten it. We have a proposed CD 1 that incorporated the additional change that we discussed yesterday.

And we've included that with our request to FIN. We do not have FIN release, but I do have and I provided to you the information that your Co-Chair, Senator Kim, requested, which is a comparison between what is provided to candidates in various offices under the current law and what would be provided under the proposed CD 1. And, or it says proposed HD 1. Same.

It's proposed in the HB 2050, HD 1, which is what the CD 1 is. So if you could please pass this on to Senator Kim. If she has any further questions, I'd be happy to respond to them, but that's where we are. So since we can't move on this, could we roll this over to tomorrow, Friday, April 24 at 3:10pm, here in Conference Room 325.

3:10. Okay. Sounds good.

If it's okay with you, we'll just any bills that we do roll over, we'll continue to move over to that 3:10 agenda. Okay. Let's move on to the next measure.

House Bill 2095 House Draft 2 Senate Draft 2, relating to the Judiciary. This is the Judiciary Supplemental Budget request on behalf of the House. We have Representative Tarnas and Kusch as co-chairs and Representatives Poepoe and Shimizu as members.

For the Senate, myself as Chair, and Moriwaki Co-chair, Awa- excuse me, Awa as Manager.

Thank you. On this measure, as I said yesterday, we are advocating for the budget as represented in the House Draft two as opposed to the Senate Draft two. I have prepared the judiciary has provided us and our respective money committees with the impact of the cuts proposed in Senate Draft two. I've made my pitch to Finance, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens with the negotiations on the State Budget. And then after that, the Judiciary Budget.

So we'll have to roll this over to tomorrow as well, if that's okay for you.

That's fine.

Thank you.

Okay. So, let's roll HB 2095 HD2 SD2 for consideration tomorrow, Friday, April 24, 03:10PM here in Conference Room 325.

K. Thank you. Next bill is an SFO, Senate bill of 2152. It's proposing amendments to Article six, Section three, of the laws to the constitution and testimony for the state of justice and the judges of seventy five and seventy for the Senate, myself as chair, Senator Kim as cochair, and Fevella as an editor.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have representatives Tarnas and Hartsfield as cochairs and representatives Gulati Poipoi and Shimizu as managers.

We haven't got it. We did get the trip back. We did. Yeah. Just the date.

Sorry. We did get to draft. We we asked for draft to to make it effective upon the process that Yes. We go through for that compliance with Article 17 of the constitution. So oath pass over.

I don't think you guys have one yet. But there is we do not have. We got one.

We have the digital. Yes. Thank you for emailing it to us.

Oh, you got it. Okay. So we will be seeking WAM approval. It's an acceptable draft.

Yes. And I've I have also requested it. It's been released on this. I have not received it yet. Okay.

Well, let's proceed. We'll go over to tomorrow.

Sounds good. I guess your first time is 03:10. That's fine. April 25.

Yes.

Okay. Next up is SB 2247. We're ready to take a fundraising break. I mentioned employees. I can sense myself as Chair, Co-chair Lee, and Manager Awa.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have Representatives Tarnas, and Keohokapu-Lee Loy as co-chairs and Representatives Poepoe and Garcia as managers.

We have we're looking on policy one.

We don't have it.

Do not have it yet. 2247?

You already do it again?

You already have it? 2247. Yeah. Yes. You emailed it to us.

Okay.

Totally blanking. Do you have a

So we're comfortable SD one with striking preferences.

It's SD 1

Authority.

Yeah.

And so we're comfortable with the proposed CD 1 and include this in our request to Finance for release, and we have not received that release yet.

Great. Great. So let's go ahead and roll this till tomorrow as well.

Okay. Yes.

April 24. I'm sorry. 03:10PM, April 24, in this room 325.

Yes.

SB 2532, relating to the Campaign Spending Commission Electronic Filing System. For the Senate, myself as chair, Lee as co-chair, and Awa as manager.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have Representative Tarnas and Hartsfield as co-chairs, and Representatives Poepoe and Garcia as managers.

So, I think the only change was if we were to change the effective date to 11/04/2026.

Yes.

Is that correct? And then we did get the WAM approved on this one. So I don't know if you

I we have not received finance approval.

We have not.

We have not.

We will follow-up on that because we're supposed to be getting them at the same time. That didn't happen. So, we will follow-up on this but we are not able to vote on it now. So if we can roll it over, that'd be great.

Now let's go to 03:10 tomorrow with everything else, which is April 24 in this room 325.

Yes. 03:10PM. That sounds good. That's it. No nothing

Go ahead.

No other business reports. We are adjourned.

Alright. Welcome, everyone to the Conference Committee on several bills today. First up is Senate Bill 2239 relating to Voter Registration. For the Senate, myself as Chair and, Managers; Chang and Awa.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have myself, Representative Tarnas and Representative Perruso as co-chairs, and Managers Representative Poepoe and Garcia.

So on this one, getting requests from various people. I think you had some concerns that you wanted to raise, but we also had some requests from another group about the languages that affects immigrants. So I don't think we're ready to go. But you go ahead and discuss what you wanna do about the other thing you got.

Thank you. I appreciate that. We actually heard the same concern about folks who are working to protect immigrants that this might have some unintended consequences that could cause some trouble. I will look into that to try to understand it better. I'm providing to the Members of our Committee, our Conference Committee.

I'm sorry. Do I proceed? This is a communication from the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Customer Services. Our Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee members will recognize this.

We have something very similar in our hearing. And you know, they reiterate their concerns. You know, they are requesting if we decide to move forward with this. Well, first they say that this proposed legislation may have unintended consequences for Hawaii's current licensing processes and require further clarification on implementation timelines and funding support from the state.

They request if we do move this forward, that we take a phased approach to implementation that will allow for a reasonable and adequate amount of time for the Counties to research and assess implementation requirements, staffing funding requirements, information technology, and other resource impacts, necessary updated administrative procedures, staff training, and good public outreach. Setting aside the concern that I know our good minority member has about changing from a, opt in to an opt out.

Just looking at operational issues, this does bring up some concerns. I didn't think that it was gonna be that complicated that would cause this much a concern, but clearly, they feel strongly about it. I will continue to investigate this to see if I can understand it better. I would urge you to do the same. In the meantime, I think we just need to roll this over, and I would welcome input from this.

That's fine. Are we do you wanna roll everything to 03:10? I'll just roll this over till 03:10 tomorrow. April 24 and it's room 325.

Yeah. So 03:10PM tomorrow, room 325

Next bill is SB 2446, that means judiciary. That's another which I see a person as myself as chair, Senator Kim as cochair and Senator O'Raugh as manager.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have myself Tarnas and representative Hartsfield as cochairs and managers represent Poitboy and Garcia.

This is a pretty simple bill just as a seventh ICA judge. We do have a it is a FIN a WAM and FIN referral, so we do have a proposed CD. I think we emailed you.

yes we got it.

We have not yet re requested or requested WAM. We at least we haven't gotten it yet. Anyway, we'd like to pull this over to you.

Thank you and just as an update from our side, we have received your proposed CD one. Thank you very much. We have also requested release from house finance and we have not received that at this time. So, yes, please. Let's roll this over.

Call this till 03:10, April 24 and 03:25 is correct.

Yes. Thank you. K.

Next bill is an also an SB 2721. This is relating to the Administration of Justice System Wide Penal Code Advisory Committee recommendation. For the Senate, myself as Chair, Senators Chang and Gabbard as managers.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, we have myself; Representative Tarnas, along with Representatives Kusch as co-chairs, and Managers Representatives Poepoe and Garcia.

On this one, we I don't know if it's Tanya. We've got we've asked for the CDs. And we do have it. Do we pass it over to him already?

I think we just received it.

We just got it. Okay. So if you could send it to you overhand your sheet right now. Yeah.

If you could send it to us also, by email.

Sure.

That'd be great. And then we can use this to request a release from FIN. I don't know really why we have FIN on this bill, but we do. So, we have to actually get there to move it out.

So I will use your code CD1 and request release from Finance committee.

Okay.

If you roll it over, it'd be great.

Alright. Let's go to 03:10. I know it's 03:10PM tomorrow and April 24. Friday, and it's Room 325.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is SB 2727. That's relating to Discrimination, Hawaii Civil Rights Commission. For the Senate, myself as Chair and Managers; Chang and Awa.

Thank you. On behalf of the house, it's myself, Representative Tarnas as Chair, and Managers; Representatives Poepoe and Shimizu.

I think we're good to go with just amending the effective eight to five people. Is that right? Okay.

Yes. We are. And so we are in agreement and we're prepared to vote.

Okay. Great.

If I may just describe the bill. So, it's a Senate Bill 2727 House Draft 1, Post Conference Strap. This measure lengthens the Statute of Limitations to file a Complaint of Discrimination with Hawaii Civil Rights Commission to one year.

Sounds right to me. Okay. For the Senate, I'll vote yes. This is a CD1. Senator Chang?

Aye.

Senator Awa?

Aye.

May I take the vote?

Yes, please.

Chair Tarnas?

Aye.

Manager Poepoe?

Aye.

And Manager Shimizu?

Aye.

Got a vote.

Thank you. Excellent.

He got this down. He got the time and everything.

Well, in about the eighteen year I started.

That's right.

Thank you very much, moving on to, yes, It's another Senate bill. SB 2919 relating to the office of public defender. For this Senate, it's myself as chair, Elefante co chair and Elwhari as manager.

Thank On behalf of the house, it's myself, Tarnas as co chair with representative Kush as co chair and managers represent Poitboy and represent Garcia.

This is the one appropriate response to the office public defender for one full time equivalent to the public defender. We have requested AC 1, which we just changed the effective date and then I guess we have this. I don't know if we sent it to you electronically yet or not.

If you haven't, please do but I don't know.

we don't have land release anyways.

Yeah and on this measure, just so everyone understands, what we did on the house bill, we moved it out, sent it to finance and they chose just to insert the position and the amount and the appropriation into the state budget. So that's why the house bill didn't cross over to you.

As the Senate bill moved over, we moved it out just to make sure because this is an important measure to provide a specific person in public defender's office that can help advise on immigration matters, constitutional and related legal matters. I appreciate your support moving this forward.

I will use your proposed CD one and pass it on to finance and request their approval for moving this out with an appropriation and we'll see what they say. So let's roll it over.

If we can open the budget, that's great. So let's go to 03:10 tomorrow, 04:24, about twenty four and this is from 03:25 on the dot.

Great. Thank you.

That brings us to SB 3073 related to Biological Evidence. From the Senate, myself as Chair, and Gabbard and Awa as Managers.

Thank you. On behalf of the house is myself, Representative Tarnas as Chair, and Representatives Belatti, Poepoe, Shimizu as managers.

Okay. I think we have a agreement on this.

So we're okay with the SD1. Just add a clean date.

Okay.

And you were gonna suggest the date.

Yeah.

09/01/2026. Is that okay?

Okay.

Yes.

In that case, I think we're ready to vote.

Yes.

You need to wanna do your?

Yes. So on this

So he's not described.

Okay. So, on Senate Bill number 3073, this measure specifies the types of cases in which evidence must be retained post-conviction and the process by which evidence may be disposed of earlier than standard period of retention, which includes a procedure for defendants to oppose the disposal of Biological Evidence by filing an objection to the court.

Okay. I'm sorry. What was, it was that you guys didn't ask for some slight change from this? Are we accepting the SD1 language entirely?

We are accepting the SD1 language.

With that, with a clean meeting day.

With a clean date.

Okay, which we already determined was

09/01/2026.

Okay. Perfect.

So ready to vote?

Yes, please.

For the Senate, Senate is a CD1. I'll vote yes. Senator Gabbard?

Senator Awa?

Aye.

Aye.

May I take the vote for the house?

Yes, please.

Chair Tarnas?

Aye.

Manager Belatti?

Aye.

Manager Poepoe?

Aye.

Manager Shimizu?

Aye.

Okay. Great. Got a bill.

Yeah. Thank you.

It's because this watch is wildly inaccurate. It uses, like, four minutes in a day sometimes for no comparison.

Thank you very much. Next is SB3076. This is relating to tobacco enforcement for the Senate itself as chair of Elavonte, co chair in the law manager.

Thank you. On behalf of the house. It's co chairs representative Tarnas and representative Hartsfield and managers, representative Poitboy and representative Garcia.

So I think we agreed to the SD one without a is that your understanding?

Yes. We agreed to the SD one. We talked about a clean date of 07/01/2026.

It's an SB so you tell me what you want to do.

If you don't mind, let's go to September 1st on that one as well. 09/01/2026.

I'm still okay with that.

I'll check. I'm sorry. We can have a CDL if we have a property of address. Can you ask for it?

So that's what we'll ask for, for a proposed address and then we'll go from there.

Yeah when you do get that address if you want you can send it to us. We have requested it and released that. We have not received it but I can just update them with the new clean date that you suggested.

Thank you. Sorry about that.

No worries.

So this one will roll till tomorrow as well? Yes, please. 03:10PM and this one here at 03:25 on 24th.

Yes.

Great. Thank you.

K. Next bill that we have is a House bill, House bill 1516, House draft one, Senate draft 1, related to pretrial release. On this measure, we have myself, representative turn assist chair, and managers represent Belatti, Poipoi, and Garcia.

I'll assist myself as chair of Senator Sundar and Schwartz and Chang as managers.

Thank you. On this measure, I think we have agreement to go with the Senate draft one language and, add a clean date of 01/01/2027.

That seems reasonable.

Great. So with your agreement, I think we could take this to a vote. Let me just briefly explain that this measure requires certain factors to be considered when determining a defendant's financial ability to afford bail. Basically saying that, the defendant's financial ability to afford bail shall be subject to the following considerations to the extent known. One, any income derived from public benefits shall be excluded from consideration.

And if the defendant's household income exclusive of public benefits exceeds 150% of the federal poverty level for Hawaii as determined by the most recent guidelines, the amount the defendant could reasonably pay within forty hours of the defendant's initial appearance shall be considered.

Please.

So that's what this bill does. With your permission, may I take a vote?

K. So recommendation versus House Bill 1516. It is 04/2326 at 02:50PM. Recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair Tarnished votes Aye.Representative Belatti

Representative Garcia

. Aye.

. Aye.

No vote

Representative Poepoe

No vote for Representative Garcia. Thank you. May I take a vote for the Senate?

Please.

Chair Rhodes.

Aye.

Senator San Buenaventura?

Senator Chang?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you. We have a bill. Thank you.

I don't remember that. It's the House recommendation was adopted, so I leave that unchecked, I believe.

I don't know.

Hopefully. I can correct yeah. I'll I'll correct it if I did.

Did I screw that up on the other voting sheets where I was supposed to check?

Okay. Let's go on to the last bill. House bill 2094. House draft one, Senate draft one related to jury duty. On behalf of the House, we have co chairs representative Tarnas and representative Kusch and members or managers representative Belattii, Poepoe, and Shimizu.

For the Senate, myself as chair, Senator Elefante as co chair, and Awa as manager.

Thank you. We have, did we give him a CD1? HB2094? I believe.

Yeah. We got it we got it from you. Okay. It's okay to us.

Okay. So thank you. We have we have provided you with the proposed CD1. I've also forwarded that to House Finance and requested release. We have not received a release on that.

So if we could roll this over, that would be great. We would reconvene on this till 03:10PM tomorrow, Friday, April 24, here in Room 325. Sounds good. Thank you. Okay.

There's been no further business before us today. We are adjourned.

Good afternoon. Welcome to today's Conference Committee. Today is Thursday, April 23 at 3pm, and we are here in Room 329. We have 3pm agenda on Senate Bill 2866 SD1 HD1.

Relating to Kupuna Housing. Senate Conferees, myself as chair and co-chair Senators San Buenaventura and Moriwaki.

And I'm here on behalf of the house and with the co chair. Myself, Lisa Marten as co-chair, along with Daisy Hartsfield, and Olds, Garcia as members.

Thank you. So, we've shared the CD1 one with you, and CD1 has a clean date, but we don't have WAM Clearance.

So, we we're fine with the CD1, and we're also just waiting for that for funding.

Great. So, shall we reconvene on Tuesday in this room 329?

Yes, please.

Okay. There'll be no further business. Meeting adjourned.

This meeting is adjourned.