Hawaii Sen. Gil Keith-Agaran, who has faced public criticism about his role as a private attorney in connection with litigation over the Lahaina wildfire disaster, has announced plans to resign from the Senate effective Oct. 31.
Keith-Agaran announced his planned resignation in a letter dated Wednesday and sent to Gov. Josh Green, Senate President Ron Kouchi and Hawaii Democratic Party Chair Dennis Jung, but did not specifically say why he is quitting the Senate midterm. Keith-Agaran was reelected last year to a four-year term scheduled to end in 2026.
His letter to the state’s leading Democrats simply says “it has been my privilege to have served in the state Legislature representing the people of my Central Maui Communities in Senate District 5 and former House District 5.”
Keith-Agaran represents Wailuku, Kalului and Waihee, and is a partner in the Maui law firm of Takitani Agaran Jorgensen & Wildman. That firm has been working with lawyers from Morgan & Morgan, which bills itself as “America’s Largest Injury Law Firm.”
The law firms are positioning themselves to participate in litigation over the Maui wildfire, with Morgan & Morgan already filing a lawsuit against Hawaiian Electric and Maui Electric Co. over the Maui fires.
Keith-Agaran did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. However, he told Civil Beat at a forum on Sunday for potential law clients that if push came to shove and he had to chose between his clients and his constituents, Keith-Agaran might choose his law practice over politics.
“I’ve always had a legal practice, my professional responsibilities are to my clients so I would pick my clients,” he said.
“If it gets to the point where it’s just such a distraction,” he said about the role his law firm will play in the fires’ aftermath, “I was appointed to this position, I didn’t run for it initially so I’m not wedded to staying in the Legislature.”
Keith-Agaran was appointed to the state House in 2009. He moved to the Senate in 2013, where he has emerged as a power player.
As vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Keith-Agaran oversees development of the Senate’s proposed list of state construction spending, a role that gave him outsized influence over which state projects are funded.
Read a copy of the letter obtained by Civil Beat here:
Civil Beat reporter Nick Grube contributed to this report.
Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.
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