HB 1239 Hawaii House · 2026 Regular Session

RELATING TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL COUNSEL.

Summary

Authorizes the Hawaiian Homes Commission to retain independent legal counsel, with any legal fees owed to be paid by the State, and also use the services of the Attorney General as needed. Effective 7/1/3000. (HD1)

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 22, 2025 Last action Dec 8, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

HB1239 → HB1239_HD1 · 4 edits

MODERATE

This bill amendment updates the bill number and metadata, corrects minor grammatical errors in the text, and changes the effective date of the law to July 1, 3000. It also adds a specific exemption allowing the Hawaiian Homes Commission to hire its own independent legal counsel, separate from the Attorney General.

Scope change

The bill now explicitly includes the Hawaiian Homes Commission as an entity authorized to retain independent legal counsel, whereas the previous version did not list this specific commission in the list of exempted departments.

TIMELINE

The effective date of the Act was changed from 'upon approval' to a fixed date of July 1, 3000.

SCOPE

The Hawaiian Homes Commission was added to the list of state departments authorized to hire independent legal counsel instead of relying solely on the Attorney General.

TECHNICAL

Minor grammatical corrections were made throughout the text, such as changing 'utilize' to 'utilizing' and fixing sentence structure in the statutory amendments.

The bill title and internal metadata were updated to reflect the House of Representatives version (HD1) and corrected file references.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 10, 2025

Committee

Reported from JHA (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 284) as amended in HD 1, recommending passage on Second Reading and referral to FIN.

lower

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 27, 2025

Committee

Referred to JHA, FIN, referral sheet 4

lower

Jan 23, 2025

Introduced

Introduced and Pass First Reading.

lower

Jan 22, 2025

Introduced

Pending introduction.

lower

14 primary · 0 co-sponsors