HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.R. NO.	110
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2021
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE RESOLUTION

Urging the Department of Hawaiian Homelands to conduct a study to determine if and when the required Hawaiian blood quantum will be sufficiently diluted as to bar any new qualifying applicants for the Hawaiian Home Lands program.

WHEREAS, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920 (HHCA) was passed by Congress and signed into law on July 9, 1921 and is meant for the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian people through a government led homesteading program; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) was established through HHCA and provides benefits to native Hawaiians by offering 99-year homestead leases at an annual rent of one dollar; and

WHEREAS, as of the latest DHHL Lessee Survey, DHHL has awarded almost ten thousand leases to qualifying applicants; and

WHEREAS, this important benefit is conferred to native Hawaiian individuals that can prove a blood quantum of at least fifty per cent Hawaiian blood; and

WHEREAS, the minimum blood quantum requirement is a measure that allows for the implementation of the HHCA’s purpose of helping those of Hawaiian decent but can serve as a barrier to Hawaiians falling short of the blood quantum requirements; and

WHEREAS, in response the legislature passed HB 451 in 2017, which is intended to prevent generationally held homeland leases from being lost when elderly lessees die without qualified successors by allowing successors to qualify with a blood quantum of at least one thirty-second Hawaiian; and

WHEREAS, while in 2017 HB 451 was an important step to continue access to the Hawaiian Home Lands program and Hawaii continues to become a more global community, interracial marriages and blended families will further dilute the Hawaiian blood quantum and increasingly bar Hawaiian applicants to the Hawaiian Home Lands program; and

WHEREAS, there will be a point where the Hawaiian blood quantum will be so diluted that the fifty percent blood quantum requirement will essentially bar all new applicants and frustrate the essential purpose of HHCA; and

WHEREAS, it is an important state interest to anticipate the eventuality of the dilution of the Hawaiian blood quantum and determine what measures the state must implement in order to further the goals of HHCA and the goals of the Hawaiian people; and

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2021, that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is urged to conduct a study to determine if and when the Hawaiian blood quantum will sufficiently be diluted as to bar any new qualifying applicants for the Hawaiian Home Lands program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Chairperson of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title:

Blood Quantum; Hawaiian Home Lands