STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2886

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2737

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2026

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 2737 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BRIBERY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Establish the offense of failure to report bribery by a state or county elected official as a misdemeanor; and

(2) Require an elected official who knows of or witnesses the conferring, offering, solicitation, or acceptance of a pecuniary benefit in violation of the bribery statute to report the conduct to the Department of the Attorney General within sixty days.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action, HULI PAC, Kupuna for the Moʻopuna, Greenpeace Hawaii, Nation of Hawaiʻi, and twenty-eight individuals.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General and Department of the Prosecuting Attorney of the City and County of Honolulu.

Your Committee finds that public office is a position of trust, and that trust demands not only personal integrity but a responsibility to act when corruption is witnessed. When elected officials know about bribery and stay silent, they become part of the problem by protecting those who abuse power and undermine the State's communities that depend on fair, transparent governance. This measure will reinforce the principle that public service carries an obligation not only to act with integrity, but to protect the integrity of the institutions they serve.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Allowing a state elected official who knows of or witnesses certain conduct in violation of the bribery statute to report to the Department of the Attorney General, a county prosecuting attorney, a law enforcement agency, the State Ethics Commission, or a county ethics board within sixty days to satisfy the reporting requirement;

(2) Specifying that the state elected officials covered by this measure only includes state elected officials whose salaries are determined by the Commission on Salaries;

(3) Inserting an effective date of March 22, 2075, to encourage further discussion; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2737, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2737, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary,

________________________________

KARL RHOADS, Chair