Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Hawaiian Home Lands Preservation Act”.
Hawaiian Home Lands Preservation Act
A BILL
To amend the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, to reduce the minimum blood quantum for successor lessees and applicants on the Application Waiting List, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Findings
Congress finds as follows:
The United States of America and the State of Hawaii have a fiduciary duty to support the rehabilitation of the Hawaiian people, in part by ensuring long-term tenancies to beneficiaries and successors of beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920.
In advocating for the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaole, the Territory of Hawaii’s non-voting delegate to Congress, anticipated future interracial marriages of the Hawaiian people and originally advocated for a blood quantum requirement of 1/32 to perpetuate native Hawaiian presence on the land. However, Delegate Kūhiō compromised for a 50 percent blood quantum requirement to get a homestead lease as a necessary concession to powerful sugar and ranching interests. At the time of the creation of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, a 1/32 blood quantum essentially meant that anyone who had Hawaiian ancestry would qualify for the Hawaiian homesteading program.
Realizing that native Hawaiians were being quickly displaced from their land due to interracial marriages the State of Hawaii and the United States of America lowered the blood quantum requirement for qualified lessee successors—
to 25 percent for spouse and children on October 27, 1986;
to 25 percent for grandchildren on June 27, 1997; and
to 25 percent for brothers and sisters on April 20, 2005.
One hundred years later, many descendants of qualified Hawaiian home lands beneficiaries do not qualify as successors because interracial marriages and blended families produce descendants who are less than 25 percent Hawaiian. These disruptions create undue hardships of displacement and interfere with families’ abilities to maintain the equity of their homes and businesses.
Throughout the entire history of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, as of December 31, 2021, less than 10,000 residential, agricultural, and pastoral leases have been issued while a backlog of 46,307 lease applications held by 28,971 native Hawaiians remains.
In 2020, the median age of an applicant on the Application Waiting List was 59 years compared to 57 in 2014. Further, in 2020, 35 percent of the applicants were over age 65 compared to 16 percent in 2003. The increase in the upper age ranges have increased the median age of the applicants on the Application Waiting List by two years. The urgency for applicants to designate successors will only grow as the median age of applicants on the Application Waiting List increases.
Consistent with trust law and applicable State duties, the government is required to explore and identify solutions that are just and equitable for all beneficiaries, irrespective of their leasehold standing.
A reduction in blood quantum requirements for successor lessees and applicants on the Application Waiting List is an important step to continue access to the Hawaiian Home Lands program and to prevent generationally held homestead leases from being lost when elderly lessees or applicants on the Application Waiting List, many of whom are older than 70 years of age, die without a qualified successor.
Sec. 3 Amendment to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920
For the purposes of the requirements of section 4 of the Act entitled “An Act to provide for the admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union”, approved March 18, 1959 (73 Stat. 4), the consent of the United States shall be deemed to be granted with respect to an amendment to Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, adopted by the State of Hawaii in the manner required for State legislation, that amends section 209 to read as follows:
“209. Successors to lessees and applicants on the Application Waiting List
“(a) Upon the death of the lessee, the lessee’s interest in the tract or tracts and the improvements thereon, including growing crops and aquacultural stock (either on the tract or in any collective contract or program to which the lessee is a party by virtue of the lessee’s interest in the tract or tracts), shall vest in the relatives of the decedent as provided in this subsection. The lessee shall designate the person or persons to whom the lessee directs the lessee’s interest in the tract or tracts to vest upon the lessee’s death from the following relatives of the lessee who are at least 1/32 native Hawaiian:
“(1) spouse, children, grandchildren, brothers, or sisters;
“(2) a father and mother;
“(3) widows or widowers of the children;
“(4) widows or widowers of the brothers and sisters; or
“(5) nieces and nephews.
“(b) The Hawaiian blood requirements shall not apply to the descendants of those who are not native Hawaiians, but who were entitled to the leased lands under section 3 of the Act of May 16, 1934 (48 Stat. 777, 779) or under section 3 of the Act of July 9, 1952 (66 Stat. 511, 513).
“(c) In the case of the death of an applicant while on the department’s Application Waiting List, the position on the Application Waiting List held by the applicant shall vest in the relatives of the decedent as provided in this subsection. The applicant shall designate the person in whom the position on the Application Waiting List shall vest from the following relatives of the applicant who are at least 1/32 native Hawaiian:
“(1) spouse, children, grandchildren, brothers, or sisters;
“(2) a father and mother;
“(3) widows or widowers of the children;
“(4) widows or widowers of the brothers and sisters; or
“(5) nieces and nephews.
“(d) Person or persons designated under subsection (a) or (c) are not required to be 18 years of age or older. The designation shall be in writing, may be specified at the time of execution of the lease with a right in the lessee in similar manner to change the beneficiary at any time and shall be filed with the department and approved by the department in order to be effective to vest the interests in the successor or successors so named.
“(e) Except as provided in subsection (b), in case of the death of any lessee or applicant on the Application Waiting List, who has failed to specify a successor or successors as approved by the department, the department may select from only the following qualified relatives of the decedent:
“(1) Spouse.
“(2) If there is no spouse, then the children.
“(3) If there is no spouse or child, then the grandchildren.
“(4) If there is no spouse, child, or grandchild, then brothers or sisters.
“(5) If there is no spouse, child, grandchild, brother, or sister, then from the following relatives of the lessee—
“(A) father and mother;
“(B) widows or widowers of the children;
“(C) widows or widowers of the brothers and sisters; or
“(D) nieces and nephews.
“(f) The rights to the use and occupancy of the tract or tracts may be made effective as of the date of the death of the lessee. In the case of the death of a lessee leaving no designated successor or successors, spouse, children, grandchildren, or relative qualified to be a lessee of Hawaiian home lands, the land subject to the lease shall resume its status as unleased Hawaiian home lands and the department is authorized to lease the land to a native Hawaiian as provided in this Act.
“(g) Upon the death of a lessee who has not designated a successor and who leaves a spouse not qualified to succeed to the lease or children not qualified to succeed to the lease, or upon the death of a lessee leaving no relative qualified to be a lessee of Hawaiian home lands, or the cancellation of a lease by the department, or the surrender of a lease by the lessee, the department shall appraise the value of all the improvements and growing crops or improvements and aquacultural stock, as the case may be, and shall pay to the non-qualified spouse or the non-qualified children as the lessee shall have designated prior to the lessee’s death, or to the legal representative of the deceased lessee, or to the previous lessee, as the case may be, the value thereof, less any indebtedness to the department, or for taxes, or for any other indebtedness the payment of which has been assured by the department, owed by the deceased lessee or the previous lessee.
“(h) Payments under subsection (g) shall be made out of the Hawaiian home loan fund and shall be considered an advance therefrom and shall be repaid by the successor or successors to the tract involved. If available cash in the Hawaiian home loan fund is insufficient to make these payments, payments may be advanced from the Hawaiian home general loan fund and shall be repaid by the successor or successors to the tract involved. Any repayment for advances made from the Hawaiian home general loan fund shall be at the interest rate established by the department for loans made from the Hawaiian home general loan fund. The successor or successors may be required by the commission to obtain private financing in accordance with section 208(6) to pay off the amount advanced from the Hawaiian home loan fund or Hawaiian home general loan fund.”
Sec. 4 Severability clause
This Act and the amendments made by this Act to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, are declared to be severable. If any section, sentence, clause, or phrase, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held ineffective the remainder of the amendments or the application thereof shall not be affected.