One of the most powerful people in the Hawaiʻi Legislature was removed from his leadership position late Tuesday.
House Speaker Nadine Nakamura told the 51-member House in a memo that Rep. Kyle Yamashita has been replaced by Rep. Chris Todd to lead the powerful House Finance Committee. The change is effective Wednesday.
House spokesperson Cathy Lee said Nakamura would not comment on the decision but planned to release a statement Wednesday. Todd and Yamashita did not respond to calls late Tuesday.
Yamashita was removed from his post just three days after the Legislature concluded its 2025 session.
Last week House members were thanking him profusely in floor speeches, praising his willingness to mentor younger members of the House. Nakamura expressed relief in her final floor speech that the new and untested leadership cadre got through their first session together.
Lawmakers are expected to return for a special session as early as August to respond to the changing fiscal situation in Washington, where President Donald Trump’s policies are already causing panic in financial markets. They include the high tariffs placed on key trading partners and the budget cuts coming from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Three state representatives who didn’t want to be identified said House Democrats, who control the chamber, wanted new leadership as the state confronts what may be the most serious financial crisis since the Covid pandemic.
A Note On Anonymous Sources
Yamashita was elected to the House in 2004 to represent part of Maui. He spent years shepherding the capital improvement budget, putting him in a plum position to quietly build a faction of lawmakers who rely on that money to fund improvements in their districts.
He also had the support to become Finance chair in 2023 after Sylvia Luke left the Legislature to become lieutenant governor. Then-Speaker Scott Saiki was forced to keep a tight rein on the untested Yamashita, whose low point running House Finance came during his first conference committee period.
Unable to reach agreement on major legislation, including the overall state budget bill, House and Senate leaders held what’s known as a cattle call that saw bills quickly die in a mass hearing. The budget wasn’t settled until the last day of the 2023 session, an unprecedented floor hearing that saw progressive Democrats denounce a secretive and clumsy process.
Yamashita, by nature a passive figure, clashed with the more domineering Donovan Dela Cruz, his counterpart in the Senate who chairs the Ways and Means Committee.
Yamashita often closed himself off not only from the media but even some of his House colleagues. His office door — on which hung a sign that said “By appointment only” — was often locked.
Early this past session, Yamashita proposed lawmakers bank $200 million in the state’s budget reserve as a hedge against possible federal budget cuts. But some House Democrats worried that was not sufficient, given that the state could be facing significant cuts in federal Medicaid payments.
That money was not actually deposited in the rainy day fund, but was left in the state general fund as part of the budget surplus. In other words, the money will be available to try to limit the damage if federal cuts are actually imposed in areas such as Medicaid or housing vouchers.
Yamashita’s signature accomplishment during his time as House Finance chair was last year’s state income tax cut, the largest in state history. That income tax cut will increase in a series of steps, with each step reducing state tax collections.
The tax cut initially reduced state tax collections by about $240 million this fiscal year, and that amount will increase to about $600 million next year. The reduction in state revenue because of the tax cut will reach more than $1 billion by fiscal year 2029.
Todd has said “basic math” dictates lawmakers will have to find some way to recoup some of that lost tax revenue, suggesting last year’s tax cut may have gone too far.
Todd, who represents part of the Big Island, was elevated to majority caucus leader when the new leadership slate was announced shortly before session began. He soon became the public voice of the caucus, responding to media inquiries that the more taciturn Yamashita seemed reluctant to handle.
