Big wins,builttogether.

2018 — 2022 · Act 114

Minimum wage

In 2018 I started Living Wage Hawaiʻi, a volunteer campaign. Over four sessions, we made the case in print, on the air and at the Capitol, alongside a coalition of 40-plus organizations. In 2022 Hawaiʻi became the first state to write an $18 minimum wage into law, lifting pay for about 192,000 workers.

2023 — 2025 · Act 139

Free school meals

School meal rules left working families just above the cutoff paying full price. A four-organization coalition, our team among them, proposed the compromise that passed, and teachers and parents carried it at the Capitol. The law extends free breakfast and lunch to families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level: about 11,000 students in the first year, and nearly 12,000 more in the second.

2025 — 2026 · Act 189

Disposable e-cigarettes

The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawaiʻi had been winning restriction after restriction here for decades before this bill. The new law ends the sale of disposable electronic smoking devices, the cheap, sweet, throwaway kind that got a generation of teenagers started. I drafted the bill; the coalition is why it passed. Signed in July 2026; sales end January 1, 2027.

The role

I’m Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute, where I lead our policy and advocacy team of six. I work on advocacy strategy with several coalitions. The coalitions decide which fights to take on; I help inform those decisions, and I represent HIPHI with our coalition partners.

Building the case

Every campaign starts with finding the change that’s actually available: a bill, a budget line, or a rule the state can simply stop applying. Then we do the research to show what the problem costs and who it reaches, write the policy, and brief the people who can act on it before we go public.

With state agencies

Sometimes changing a rule is faster than passing a law. We work with state agencies to change those rules, and to make sure new laws are carried out as they were passed.

For reporters and event organizers

Nate Hix is Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute. Their team works with partners across the islands so every family can count on healthy food, health care within reach, safe ways to get around and a healthier climate, and so kids can count on school meals and grow up tobacco-free.

Copy this bio 55 words. A longer version and a résumé are available on request.

Research and explainers

Policy writing

For my organization and others, including testimony. Testimony links open my pages from the Legislature’s public files.

• 2026Legislative recapAuthor
• 2026Post-session policy updateCo-author
• 2026SB 3125 · Future income tax cutsTestimony, became Act 24
• 2026SB 2471 · Corporate election spendingTestimony, became Act 11
• 2026HB 2310 · Emergency SNAP reliefTestimony, became Act 21
• 2025Legislative recapAuthor
• 2025Mid-session policy updateAuthor
• 2025SB 1300 · Free school mealsTestimony, became Act 139
• 2025SB 960 · SNAP staffing and payTestimony, became Act 264
• 2024HB 2430 · Summer EBT for childrenTestimony, became Act 155
• 2023 — 2024Legislative recapsContributor
• 2023HB 740 · The SNAP benefit cliffTestimony; the bill died, and the state changed the rule in 2025