Tipsheet

Hawaii Residents Should Be Terrified to Find Out What Will Happen If These Bills Pass

Jeff Charles
Jeff Charles  |  February 24, 2026 10:00 AM

Remember that scene in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith when the Galactic Senate votes to give all-encompassing emergency powers to Emperor Palpatine?

That’s basically what will happen in Hawaii if a pair of emergency powers bills are passed. State lawmakers have advanced two bills that would empower the governor to declare an emergency and then order quarantines, enter private property, suspend existing statutes, regulate and seize firearms, and completely exterminate the Jedi order.

Okay, I made that last one up, but the fact remains: These bills are some of the scariest I’ve seen at any level of government lately.

House Bill 2236 and Senate Bill 2151 are moving through the state legislature at the same time that Gov. Josh Green is still ruling under a longstanding housing emergency proclamation that suspended land-use and transparency rules to fast-track home construction, Hawaii Public Radio reported.

The bill would grant the governor the authority to “require the quarantine or segregation of persons who are affected with or believed to have been exposed to any infectious, communicable, or other disease” and to “authorize without the permission of the owners or occupants, entry on private premises for any of these purposes.”

The state would also be empowered to “authorize that public nuisances be summarily abated and, if need be, that the property be destroyed by any police officer or authorized person.”

Those opposing the measures point out the impact it will have on constitutional rights. Advocacy group Hawaii Capitol Watch warned that the bills “would ensure that executive branch leaders do not arbitrarily call long-standing and complex societal challenges, such as unaffordable housing or illegal activity, as ‘emergencies’ in order to suspend our environmental, cultural protection, good governance, procurement, and labor laws indefinitely - as the Governor attempted to do with his emergency proclamation on (un)affordable housing.”

The group further contends that “the potential still exists for a future executive to attempt to use long-standing and complex societal challenges — such as unaffordable housing or ‘illegal activity’ — to declare an emergency and thereby indefinitely bypass the checks and balances that protect vital public interests, including in our environment, cultural integrity, and democracy itself.”

All one has to do to see that these bills would make even King George III blush is to consider how they might have been applied under the COVID-19 pandemic. Politicians across the country would salivate at the opportunity to use these emergency powers to force people to take vaccines, wear masks, and quarantine in places the government designates.

Indeed, many state governments tried doing many of these things to varying degrees. No governor or other politician should ever possess the level of power that these bills would grant Hawaii’s top executive. Emergency powers are typically supposed to be temporary — but how often do these people relinquish their power?

Sith lords like Emperor Palpatine don’t exist in real life. But the risk remains nonetheless. This much power in the hands of a small group of people only leads to rampant violations of natural and constitutional rights. It is the reason the Bill of Rights was created in the first place.

But this is exactly how government grows. If Hawaii’s voters are not paying attention, these measures might pass and they will see exactly why the government does not deserve this level of authority once the next emergency is declared.