HB 1528 Hawaii House · 2026 Regular Session

PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE VI, SECTION 3, OF THE HAWAII STATE CONSTITUTION TO INCREASE THE MANDATORY RETIREMENT AGE FOR STATE JUSTICES AND JUDGES.

HB 1528 proposes a constitutional amendment to raise Hawaii's mandatory retirement age for state justices and judges from 70 to 75 years. If enacted, this change would require current judges nearing 70 and future appointees to retire at 75 instead of 70. The amendment must be approved by voters after passing the legislature. This policy directly affects all state judges and justices serving under Hawaii's constitution.

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 14, 2026 Last action Feb 12, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

HB1528 → HB1528_HD1 · 4 edits

MODERATE

This bill amends the Hawaii State Constitution to raise the mandatory retirement age for all state court justices and judges from 70 to 75 years old. The changes include correcting formatting errors in the bill's header and clarifying the ballot language to explicitly state that the amendment affects the state constitution. No new substantive policy requirements, funding, or eligibility criteria were added beyond the age increase.

Scope change

The bill's scope remains focused on increasing the retirement age for state court justices and judges; no new entities or jurisdictions were added.

TECHNICAL

Corrected formatting errors in the bill header, including author names, dates, and page numbers.

Standardized the capitalization of 'Article' and 'section' in the constitutional amendment text.

REQUIREMENT

Added a comma to the list of nominee counts in the judicial selection process description for grammatical clarity.

Expanded the ballot question text to explicitly mention amending the Hawaii State Constitution.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 12, 2026

Committee

Reported from JHA (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 228-26) as amended in HD 1, recommending passage on Second Reading and referral to FIN.

lower

Feb 4, 2026

Lower · Passed

The committee on JHA recommend that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes were as follows: 10 Ayes: Representative(s) Tarnas, Poepoe, Belatti, Cochran, Hashem, Kahaloa, Sayama, Takayama, Garcia, Shimizu; Ayes with reservations: none; Noes: none; and Excused: none.

lower

Jan 26, 2026

Committee

Referred to JHA, FIN, referral sheet 1

lower

Jan 21, 2026

Introduced

Introduced and Pass First Reading.

lower

Jan 14, 2026

Introduced

Prefiled.

lower

2 primary · 0 co-sponsors