HB 304 Hawaii House · 2025 Regular Session

RELATING TO THE HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE.

Summary

Requires that the Hawaiian version of a law be held binding if the law in question was originally drafted in Hawaiian and then translated into English and the law has not been later amended, codified, recodified, or reenacted in English. Effective 7/1/3000. (HD1)

Bill status in committee 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2025

Committee Review

Feb 2025

House Passage

Feb 2025

Senate Passage

Governor

Introduced Jan 16, 2025 Last action Feb 13, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

HB304 → HB304_HD1 · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill was reformatted from a legislative document to a Microsoft Word template, but the substantive policy changes are significant. The most important change is the effective date, which was altered from immediate approval to July 1, 3000. Additionally, the binding language rule was expanded to include a new condition that the law must not have been later amended, codified, recodified, or reenacted in English for the Hawaiian version to be considered binding. The bill also added a bracketed correction to Section 1-13, changing 'are' to 'shall be' for the official languages declaration.

Scope change

The scope of the binding language rule was narrowed by adding a condition that the law must not have been subsequently amended or recodified in English for the Hawaiian version to be binding.

TIMELINE

The effective date was changed from 'upon approval' to 'July 1, 3000', which effectively delays the law's implementation indefinitely.

REQUIREMENT

A new condition was added to the binding language rule requiring that the law must not have been later amended, codified, recodified, or reenacted in English for the Hawaiian version to be held binding.

DEFINITION

The official languages declaration was corrected by changing 'are' to 'shall be' to clarify the mandatory nature of the provision.

TECHNICAL

The document format changed from a legislative text file to a Microsoft Word template with metadata headers.

Floor votes · House Feb 13, 2025

How they voted

48–0

Passed · 3 other

Total votes 51

Feb 13, 2025

D Democratic41

40 Yea 1

97% Yea

R Republican10

8 Yea 2

80% Yea

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 13, 2025

Committee

Reported from JHA (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 625) as amended in HD 1, recommending passage on Second Reading and referral to FIN.

lower

Feb 13, 2025

House · Passed

House Vote: pass (48-0-3)

house

Jan 31, 2025

Lower · Passed

The committee on JHA recommend that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes were as follows: 9 Ayes: Representative(s) Tarnas, Poepoe, Belatti, Hashem, Kahaloa, Perruso, Takayama, Garcia, Shimizu; Ayes with reservations: none; Noes: none; and 2 Excused: Representative(s) Cochran, Todd.

lower

Jan 21, 2025

Committee

Referred to JHA, FIN, referral sheet 1

lower

Jan 17, 2025

Introduced

Introduced and Pass First Reading.

lower

Jan 16, 2025

Introduced

Pending introduction.

lower

7 primary · 0 co-sponsors