#Matthias Kusch

After a nearly three-hour hearing, members of the House committees on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs and Agriculture & Food Systems voted Tuesday afternoon to recommend passage of a bill to legalize adult recreational marijuana use.

Bills have been referred to committees in both chambers of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature to limit the amount landlords can raise rents for tenants at a time of desperate housing shortages and renters having few, if any, options if they can’t afford demands for higher monthly rent payments.

A bill introduced by 13 representatives in the state House calls for establishing a permanent “Return-to-Home program” with an as yet undetermined amount of funding to return homeless people in Hawaiʻi to their home states.

Gov. Josh Green appointed Matthias Kusch on Friday to fill the House District seat left vacant by the late Representative Mark Nakashima, who also was unopposed in the recent primary election.