Current seat holder: David Tarnas (D).
Monique Perreira (Republican) is a candidate for the Hawaii House of Representatives in District 8 (Hawaii County) in the November 3, 2026 general election. Monique Perreira qualified with the Hawaii Office of Elections to appear on the November 3, 2026 general election ballot for House District 8.
David Tarnas (Democratic) David Tarnas graduated from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School in 1978. Tarnas earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Kalamazoo College in 1982 and a master's degree in marine affairs from the University of Washington in 1985. His career experience includes working as the president and principal consultant of Marine and Coastal Solutions International, Inc., the director of government affairs of Merica International LLC, and the CEO and board chairman of Phase, Inc. Tarnas has served as the Hawaii County chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii and co-founded the Malama Kai Foundation. As Chair of the House Water and Land Committee, I work specifically on policies, programs and appropriations relating to managing water, public lands, watersheds, forests, wildlife, coastal areas, parks, harbors, coral reefs and all marine resources. With travel restrictions during the pandemic, residents enjoyed beaches, parks, oceans, and hiking trails without visitors. It became clear there were too many visitors and the environmental quality of our special places was suffering from overuse. As we rebuild our tourism economy, we must protect our environment by limiting the number of visitors using these sites and by charging visitors user fees to help pay for environmental protection and resource management in these sites. That's why I led the effort in the legislature to establish the Ocean Stewardship fee that every ocean recreation customer will pay for marine resource management and conservation programs. I support legislation to establish "green fees" for visitors who use any public trust resource, such as beaches, trails and state lands, to help pay for resource management and conservation programs on state lands. We need to increase efforts to educate our visitors about how to treat our environment and our community in respectful and low-impact ways so we can maintain environmental quality and our quality of life. I also support expanding other industries including astronomy, ocean science and technology, forestry, agriculture, and knowledge-based industries.