Hawaii delegation making mark at National Conference of State Legislators in Chicago

News admin July 26, 2026 0 Comments

Hawaii delegation making mark at National Conference of State Legislators in Chicago

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – More than a dozen Hawaii lawmakers are among the 7,200 people from across the country and political spectrum gathering in Chicago for the National Conference of State Legislators this week.

They’re comparing policies and approaches to pressing issues including energy, economic development, healthcare, transportation and immigration. Several smaller conferences are leading up to the main event on Monday, including the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL), which is led by state senator Chris Lee.

On Sunday, Hawaii lawmakers made up almost a third of the attendees at the National Asian Pacific American Caucus of State Legislators conference, chaired by Maui Senator Troy Hashimoto. State senate president Ron Kouchi and House Speaker Nadine Nakamura also took part.

Puna representative Greggor Ilagan says Hawaii serves as an example for other states.

“Other states have very few Asians in their body, and they’re a minority of the minority, so to be able to be part of this organization allows Hawaii to help other states with their Asian electeds and show them and share with them. And really share ideas on what we’re doing in Hawaii and see what sort of challenges they’re facing and hopefully they can overcome their challenges and help them throughout their advocacy in their state,” Ilagan said.

Discussions focus on engaging AAPI voters, appealing to all voters as an AAPI candidate, AI regulation, immigration enforcement and health disparities in the AAPI community.

Nonprofits also shared results of surveys and data showing issues AAPI communities care about — affordability and immigration top the list.

“You don’t want to be legislating in a bubble. You want to understand the context, and context matters,” Hashimoto said. “That’s why when you talk to a lot of these different people, that’s really what you’re trying to understand is at the end of the day for us legislators, what’s the best thing for Hawaii, and it takes time to figure that out. And I think you have to really talk to a lot of people. It’s not only coming to conferences with fellow legislators, it’s also interacting with people at the federal level. Our elected congressional level leaders and synthesizing all of that to make sure that we’re doing the best job as possible.”

When asked about the recent indictments in the state’s corruption and bribery probe involving Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, Hashimoto expressed disappointment and acknowledged the controversy has cast a dark cloud over the legislature.

“I served with Lt. Gov. Luke and former DHS Director Yamane, and it comes as a surprise the accusations, but I think it just shows that we all have to be diligent and you can’t do that, you’re dealing in the public space,” Hashimoto said.

“Honesty is incredibly and transparency is incredibly important and I think that’s the saddest thing about this whole thing is I think that level of trust has been broken and I think we as legislators have to rebuild that. I think we have to show that we are open and transparent and you know that some of that, any of that is not tolerated and so it’s unfortunate that we have to go through this, but the mystery hopefully is somewhat over, and we need to understand how to move forward together.”