Hawaii lawmakers press Gov. Green to reverse course: four resolutions urge him to reconsider declining §25F

Hawaii is one of a small group of states whose governor has said no to the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F), and in March 2026 its own legislature pushed back. Between March 12 and March 19, lawmakers introduced four measures carrying the same title, “Urging the Governor to Reconsider His Decision Not to Allow Hawaii to Participate in the Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit Program.” Two came from the House (HR68 and HCR74) and two from the Senate (SR148 and SCR158). The House measures were referred to the Education and Finance committees, the Senate measures to Education and Ways and Means. Their shared premise is stated in the title: Gov. Josh Green had already decided against making Hawaii’s advance election, and a bloc of legislators wanted that decision revisited before the program’s January 1, 2027 launch.

It is worth being precise about what these resolutions are and are not. A resolution expresses the will of one or both chambers; it does not change law and cannot compel the governor to file anything. As of their last action all four had been referred to committee, the earliest stage, and none carried the force of a statute directing an opt-in. What they accomplish, regardless of whether they advance, is to put Hawaii’s opt-in question on the official legislative record and to signal that the governor’s “no” is contested inside his own party’s legislature rather than settled.

Hawaii’s status on the map is unchanged by the resolutions themselves: Green declined to make the 2027 advance election, and the state has not filed Form 15714 or submitted a list of Scholarship Granting Organizations to Treasury. But the decision is not permanent. The §25F election is annual, so a governor who declines for 2027 can still elect in for 2028 or any later year. Hawaii is not alone in this posture; we have tracked how the three declining states, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Oregon, have all been reported to be reconsidering, and where the broader field of Democratic governors has landed in our look at how Democratic governors have split on §25F. The through-line is the argument that has moved governors across the spectrum: §25F does not spend a state’s own money, it lets residents redirect federal tax they would otherwise owe into scholarships for local children.

For anyone weighing whether to build a Hawaii SGO, the practical signal is that the opt-in question is live rather than closed, even with the governor’s position unmoved for now. Nothing about these resolutions changes what an operator can do today, and almost everything an SGO needs, its 501(c)(3) determination, a segregated account, a donor pipeline, can be assembled independent of any one governor’s decision. Founders can track Hawaii’s status and every other state’s on our Hawaii state page and the national participation map, see the field already forming in the SGO directory, and use our guide to starting an SGO to build the pieces that do not depend on the statehouse. If Hawaii ever files its election, the operators who prepared during the wait are the ones ready to serve families on day one.