Name on ballot:

David A. Tarnas

Running for:

State House – District 8

Political party:

Democrat

Campaign website:

www.votetarnas.com

Current occupation:

State Representative, Environmental Planning Consultant

Age:

63

Previous job history:

Environmental Planning Consultant and State Representative

Previous elected office, if any:

State Representative for House District 6 (N. & S. Kohala, N. Kona) 1994-1998 State Representative for House District 7 (N. & S. Kohala, N. Kona) 2018-2022 State Representative for House District 8 (N. & S. Kohala) 2022-2024

Please describe your qualifications to represent the people in your district.

Aloha. I am running for re-election as State Representative for House District 8 – North and South Kohala where I have lived nearly 38 years and where my wife and I raised our two children. I am a professional environmental planner and have worked in Hawaii and overseas on public and private sector projects, including commercial harbors, small boat harbors, highways, scientific facilities, residences and commercial developments, as well as natural resource management projects such as watershed management plans, coastal and marine protected areas, and fishery management areas. I have worked as a consultant for private companies in a variety of economic sectors including forestry, fisheries, aquaculture, renewable energy, marine biotechnology, and agriculture. I just completed my fifth term in office, having served as the Chair of the House Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs. In previous terms, I served as Chair of the House Committee on Water and Land and Chair of the House Committee on Ocean Recreation and Marine Resources. This broad range of experience in the private sector and public sector allows me to serve effectively as our district’s State Representative.

What is the most-pressing issue facing residents in your district and how would you address the problem?

The top priority is to reduce the cost of living for residents. To address this, I supported legislation to expand tax relief for working families through the biggest income tax reductions in state history and by exempting healthcare and dental services from the State GET if they are paid for by Medicare, Medicaid or TRICARE. I support expanding this GET exemption for all healthcare and dental services. I support increasing affordable housing opportunities by funding infrastructure development for affordable housing projects and providing sustained funding for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) to continue to build new housing for native Hawaiians.

In 2024, I supported legislation authorizing Counties to permit more Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on residential lots (SB 3202), to approve residential use of commercial properties (HB 2090), and to phase out non-conforming short term rental units where they are inappropriate (SB 2919). In 2023, the legislature funded DHHL $600 million to develop housing for native Hawaiians. In 2024, we continued our support for DHHL by extending the lapse date of this funding and appropriating $124 million in the Act 279 Special Fund. I support additional appropriations to DHHL in future legislative sessions.

In addition to the high cost of housing, another major cost of living is for childcare. To address this issue, I have been a steadfast advocate of appropriating additional funds to expand publicly funded early childhood education facilities in my district and throughout the state.

What would you propose to be done at the state level to help residents cope with Hawaii’s high cost of living?

I will continue to support legislation that reduces the rising cost of living in Hawai’i. In 2024, we reduced income tax for all residents with greater cuts for lower income brackets. We exempted dental and health care services paid for by Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE from the State’s General Excise Tax (GET). This past year, we continued to incrementally increase the state’s minimum wage. The legislature also provided funds to reduce the cost of housing for low-income families, facilitate the development of additional affordable housing and associated infrastructure, expand rural healthcare capacity, expand publicly funded early childhood learning facilities, increase support for kupuna care services, and fund adult dental care for Medicaid patients.

Going forward, the legislature must do more work in all these areas. I support bills providing a GET exemption for all food, medicine and healthcare; changing the tax code to ensure corporations and high income earners pay their fair share of taxes; expanding workforce development programs in high school and community colleges; providing publicly-funded preschool statewide; expanding financing programs for affordable housing projects and associated infrastructure; and facilitating the redistricting of appropriate land parcels from the agriculture district to the rural district to allow for more affordable housing development.

What can the state Legislature do to help Hawaii home and condo owners with rising property insurance rates?

The legislature should take action to reduce the costly insurance premium increases faced by Hawaii condominium and home owners. We need to figure out some remedy for the unsustainable insurance premium increases facing our residents.

Last session, I voted for two measures that sought to address this issue. One bill was SB 3234, which would have helped to stabilize the State’s property insurance market and encourage property owners to continue to do business in the State by enabling the Hawaii Property Insurance Association and Hawaii Hurricane Relief Fund to underwrite certain insurance risks that may otherwise not be underwritten. Unfortunately, the House and Senate did not come to agreement on the final language of this measure and it did not pass the legislature last session.

Since it was clear there was disagreement between the House and Senate, and between legislators and regulators about the best solution to this problem, the House also passed HB 2056 that would have set up the State Reinsurance Exploratory Working Group and provided it funding to gather information and submit a report to the legislature to assist it in generating innovative solutions that address increasing insurance costs to consumers in the State. I voted for this bill, but the Senate did not agree with this bill. So, the bill was not approved by the Senate.

I recently heard that the Governor is considering the possibility of calling the legislature back into special session to deal with this issue of costly increases to home and condo insurance premiums. For this special session to be successful, the legislative committees in the House and Senate need to have agreement on the legislation we intend to pass. The lack of agreement between the House and Senate on these two bills is indicative that there is still much work that needs to be done to find agreement. However, these two bills could provide a starting point for negotiations between the House and Senate on a compromise bill to address this issue. I will continue to advocate to the Governor and legislative leaders that the legislature and administration do the work needed to address this issue as soon as possible.

Can Hawaii’s tourism-dependent economy be diversified, and, if so, what can state government do to support the effort?

While tourism will continue to be important to our economy, we must develop destination management plans to manage tourism and reduce the negative impacts tourism can have on local communities and special places. I encourage more cottage industries to produce for the tourism market to spread out the economic benefits of tourism more broadly in the community. I also support public funding for improved public infrastructure on which tourism depends, including multi-modal access on roadways, better maintained parks, hiking and biking trails, small boat harbors, launch ramps and mooring buoys. Improving this infrastructure can help attract and sustain more local businesses in the tourism industry.

To further diversify our economy, I support emerging economic sectors such as knowledge-based industries and various ocean technology industries, including marine biotechnology, autonomous remote sensing platforms, ocean-based mariculture, offshore wind power generation, and underwater observatories. I believe the astronomy industry can continue as a major industry for Hawaii Island and the State. It can also increase the job pipeline for local students, and expand contracting of local companies by the astronomical observatories and their headquarters for repair, maintenance and operations services. I also support the legalization of adult use of cannabis, which would support an entirely new legal market with business opportunities in production, processing, analytical laboratory services, distribution, and retail.

What would you propose to help increase affordable housing in Hawaii?

I support increasing affordable housing opportunities by funding infrastructure development for affordable housing projects and providing sustained funding for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) to continue to build new housing for native Hawaiians.

In 2024, I supported legislation authorizing Counties to permit more Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) on residential lots (SB 3202), to approve residential use of commercial properties (HB 2090), and to phase out non-conforming short term rental units where they are inappropriate (SB 2919). In 2023, the legislature funded DHHL $600 million to develop housing for native Hawaiians. In 2024, we continued our support for DHHL by extending the lapse date of this funding and appropriating $124 million in the Act 279 Special Fund.

In my own district, I am strongly supportive of building more affordable housing. I have been urging the State Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) to approve the Ota well in North Kona so we have sufficient water to build an affordable housing project in Kealakehe. I am also urging CWRM to approve additional water well permits in the Waikoloa aquifer (Anaehoomalu) to provide water to the affordable housing development project proposed for the Waikoloa region. I also support the requests for additional water resources for the affordable housing project proposed for the Ouli region along Kawaihae Road near Waimea.

What can state government do to better support and improve public education in Hawaii?

The legislature must continue to support appropriations to pay the differentials for employees in hard-to-staff positions and working in hard-to-staff schools. We need to provide significantly more appropriations for repair and maintenance of existing aging school facilities and to build new facilities.

I have been a long-time steadfast supporter of publicly funded early childhood education. Last session, the legislature made a major commitment to this effort with significant appropriation to improve facilities statewide. In my district, I have focused on building more publicly funded early childhood education facilities. During my time, new publicly-funded early childhood education facilities have been opened in North Kohala and Waimea. And in Waikoloa, a new two-classroom early childhood education center will be included in the new Waikoloa Public Library that will start construction next year. I will continue to advocate for additional public funding for early childhood education. This is the best investment we can make to improve public education in Hawaii.

Should the state continue to pursue building a replacement for Aloha Stadium in Halawa? Please explain.

If we have a willing private sector partner, I support using the Aloha Stadium site for a new stadium combined with a mixed use/affordable housing project. But, if there is insufficient private sector interest to co-develop the site with a stadium, then we should use the site for a mixed use affordable housing development without the stadium. To meet the needs for UH football, UH should probably plan to accommodate these games at a stadium on their campus.

Should members of the state Legislature have term limits like Honolulu’s mayor and City Council members?

I do not support term limits for state legislators. The legislative process benefits by having experienced and knowledgeable legislators and Committee Chairs. If a legislator is effective and responsive to constituent concerns, voters should have the opportunity to re-elect them. This system works for the good of the community. For this reason, I do not support term limits which would effectively disenfranchise constituents who wish to re-elect a long-serving legislator. Term limits decrease the power of legislators and increase the power of unelected individuals like agency officials, legislative staff, and lobbyists.

In my opinion, it is through elections that voters can and do limit the terms of their legislators. To that end, the legislature should continue its efforts to improve the existing elections system by educating voters about the candidates and ballot measures, making it easier and more secure for people to vote, ensuring the integrity of the election process and voting rolls, and enabling voters to track their ballots through the mail-in voting process. For example, the new digital voter’s guide for the 2024 elections will help to educate citizens so that the existing election process will be even more effective.

What reforms, if any, would you propose to make local government more transparent to the public?

I support increased transparency and public access to the legislature. During hearings of the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, as Chair, I explain the substance of the bill, ensure all testifiers can testify, facilitate thorough discussions after the testimony, carefully explain all amendments to the bill or the reasons to defer a bill. During Conference Committees on which I served as Co-Chair, I explained each bill and the details of any proposed amendments.

As the Honolulu Civil Beat’s “Sunshine Editorial Board” wrote on March 19, 2023, “Tarnas is one chair who takes time to patiently explain any changes or amendments, including why he is not moving a bill forward.”

I support laws to create stricter disclosure requirements for lobbyists. In the 2023 session, we passed a bill which requires state legislators to include within the legislator’s disclosure of financial interests, the names of certain lobbyists with whom the legislator has a relationship (HB 141). In the 2024 session, we passed bills to strengthen ethics laws relating to lobbying (SB 2217), increase maximum administrative fines allowed for violations of the state ethics code and lobbyists law (HB 1881), and clarify and update the way the State Ethics Commission provides advice and conducts investigations pursuant to the state ethics code and lobbyists law (SB 2216).

As Chair of the House Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs Committee during this last legislative session, I have been a leader in passing significant good-government legislation that has strengthened our State’s public corruption laws, ethics laws, anti-nepotism laws, campaign finance laws, and laws to regulate lobbyists interactions with legislators. My work has been praised by Judge Dan Foley (Chair of the Commission to Improve Standards of Conduct) (2/23/23 JHA testimony and 6/23/23 Governor’s bill signing), Robert Harris (Executive Director of the Hawaii State Ethics Commission) (4/28/24 Civil Beat interview), and Brian Black (Director of the Public First Law Center, formerly the Civil Beat Law Center in the Public Interest) (4/24/24 Civil Beat interview).

What will be your top priority if elected?

At the end of my term, I hope to have made significant improvements to the public infrastructure in House District 8 with better roads, parks, watersheds, forests, harbors, hospitals, schools, and courthouses.

As Chair of the Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs Committee, I also hope to have made big and small changes to government policies and programs to incorporate best practices from other states in criminal justice reform that achieve effective restorative justice and harm reduction in our State, resulting in successful reduction in our population of incarcerated residents; better access to treatment for behavioral health and substance abuse disorders; and effective paths for people to stabilize and rebuild their lives to become productive members of society.

Is there anything more that you would like voters to know about you?

I am grateful to be serving as the State Representative for North & South Kohala. My goal is to work hard to be an effective legislator who is responsive to the community and gets the job done. Please allow me to continue working for you by voting to re-elect David Tarnas to the State House for House District 8. Mahalo!