The state Senate Committee on Hawaiian Affairs on Tuesday moved out a bill that would prohibit the state Attorney General’s Office from investigating nonprofit organizations such as Kahea: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance that face a subpoena from the Attorney General seeking their financial records.

The revised version of Senate Bill 42 would prohibit the Attorney General “from investigating nonprofit organizations for exercising their constitutional right to free speech and assembly or protecting constitutional grants of rights, such as the traditional and customary Hawaiian cultural rights.”

Language in SB 42 says an investigation of a nonprofit organization by the Attorney General “can be intimidating and could be deemed to be retaliatory when the nonprofit engages in nonviolent civil disobedience against a government program, practice, or policy.”

SB 42 comes in response to the Attorney General’s efforts to obtain First Hawaiian Bank information about Kahea, which opposes the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea and has faced off against the Attorney General in two contested cases that went before the Hawaii Supreme Court regarding Mauna Kea.

In a filing to Circuit Court Judge James Ashford, the Attorney General’s Office said that Kahea had failed to file required financial statements with the state since 2018.

“The Attorney General has the duty to assure that 501(c)(3) organizations are in compliance with the law, and is statutorily empowered to review their financial records,” according to the filing. “The Attorney General thus issued a subpoena to First Hawaiian Bank (‘FHB’) for Kahea’s bank records. The subpoena is well within the Attorney General’s authority, is not burdensome or oppressive, and does not violate any of Kahea’s alleged rights. Kahea’s motion to quash should be denied.”

Last week Kahea attorney Richard Naiwieha Wurdeman spent about 45 minutes making his case to Judge Ashford to quash the Attorney General’s subpoena.

Ashford said he was inclined to allow the subpoena but gave both sides until Friday to reach agreement on how much financial information should be released.

Ashford said he was not inclined to force First Hawaiian Bank to hand over some information sought through the subpoena, including surveillance photos of ATM activity.

The Attorney General’s Office previously issued a subpoena to Hawaiian Airlines seeking the names of people who donated their frequent- flyer miles so protesters could join the protest at Mauna Kea, and it subpoenaed the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which had provided portable toilets, rubbish collection and other amenities at the protest camp at the base of Mauna Kea Access Road, according to a court memorandum filed by Wurdeman.