4 Republicans vying for Congressional seat Saturday

St. Tammany News

Voters will choose their party's candidate in primary election

With political jabs from seasoned politicians to grassroots campaigns inspired by children's eyes, candidates are squaring off Saturday for the 1st Congressional District seat vacated by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

For the first time in decades, voters in the 1st Congressional District, a span that includes St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington and swaths of Jefferson, Orleans and St. Charles parishes, may elect a Northshore politician as 57 percent of the district's voters now live on the Northshore.

This will be a closed primary. Democrats must vote for a Democrat; Republicans must choose a Republican.

Friday, St. Tammany News will take a close look at the Democratic candidates.

Here's a closer look at the Republican candidates:

Tim Burns

Throughout his first term as state lawmaker, Rep. Tim Burns of Mandeville could rattle off accomplishments that include favorable votes for a smoking ban in Louisiana restaurants and a deadline extension of one to two years to sue insurance companies after Hurricane Katrina.

But one unfinished item still prods at Burns, who, as a lawyer and accountant, skipped from door to door on a motorized scooter in 2003 asking for votes in his successful bid for representative of the 89th House District.

Completion of the long-proposed Louisiana Highway 3241, a 20-mile divided highway first proposed by then state Sen. B.B. "Sixty" Rayburn, is a top Northshore priority, Burns said.

The north/south highway connecting Bogalusa to St. Tammany has continually failed to gain financial footing.

Despite a voter-approved state gasoline tax worth $150 million to fund the project, the highway project has stalled for more than two decades, languishing in bureaucratic limbo. Since then, the highway has become the focus of criticism and support between Washington Parish officials, who tout its economic development, and homeowners scared the path will wreck their home life. So, far federal transportation officials have not lent a hand, Burns said.

"Apparently, moving this project through the federal bureaucracy is going to require someone who is focused and tenacious and willing to make the Corps of Engineers just as miserable as our traffic jams make us," Burns said.

While Burns initially struggled with leaving his representative seat should he win, as a congressman his ability to serve is greater, he said.

"Frankly, there are considerably more resources on a federal level," he said.

If elected, Burns said he'd continue to fight for small businesses, a platform he's carried since he was elected to the House of Representatives. As a lawyer and an MBA graduate, Burns has long decried the federal government's role in stifling small business. He's written two books relating to the subject and said partisan politics is largely to blame for the country's stalemate in economic reform.

"The monstrous bureaucracy has only served to stifle liberty rather than enhance it," Burns said. "We will experience true liberty as envisioned by our founders when we are able to get government off of our back and out of our wallet."

Burns also vowed to improve health care and favors homeland defense. He said health care reform should be a top concern throughout the country and the government is "unable to fulfill important promises to citizens such as providing affordable health care and ensuring that social security will be there for those who paid in to it all of their lives."

After Katrina, Burns focused on hurricane recovery, securing more time for homeowners to sue insurance companies. He also rallied for a bill to create a system of text messaging to be used for communication during disasters when cell phone towers where either overloaded or inoperable.

"Americans feel more vulnerable today to attacks from abroad and within that at any time in modern history," Burns said. And, "as we know, when we really needed our military after Katrina, they were very late in arriving."

If elected, Burns will continue to focus on tax reform as he did as state legislator. He points to a time when St. Tammany Parish constituents decried unfair property assessments; Burns sued the state Tax Commission on their behalf.

"Partisan bickering and gridlock in Washington have severely polarized our country," Burns said. "While there are thankfully no massive riots in the street, our citizens are upset and disgusted with Washington."

Ben Morris

If there is one thing you can say about the current mayor of Slidell, it's that Ben Morris is no shrinking violet.

Morris is a man who speaks his mind, and he doesn't care if he hurts your feelings.

His antipathy and anger at the Federal Emergency Management Agency is one of the main reasons he is running for the 1st Congressional District seat.

"There is too much bureaucracy," Morris said.

He should know.

For the past two years, Morris has been negotiating, cajoling and even screaming at FEMA to come to the aid of his city that suffered catastrophic flood damage during Hurricane Katrina.

A lifelong Republican, Morris is convinced FEMA can be changed so that it really helps citizens at times of disaster.

He believes FEMA should be taken out from under the umbrella of Homeland Security and go back to being an autonomous agency and on the President's Cabinet. After that, a concerted effort must be made to make FEMA more efficient and accountable.

"FEMA should be a lean, mean fighting machine. It should have an efficient chain of command, which it lacks presently," Morris said.

Morris is just the person to know about efficient chains of command. He spent 32 years in the U.S. Army and retired as a colonel. He worked as an agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency and served as Slidell police chief for 12 years before winning election to be mayor in 2002. Morris has been married to his wife, Susie for 32 years, and they have four children.

Morris said he has other issues he would like to address if he is elected to Congress. He believes our national borders should be closed, not just to stop illegal immigration, but to keep terrorists from coming in. He believes America should stay in Iraq until the mission is finished, which means a stable government.

"We need to finish what we started," Morris said.

He said we have to do more on the war on terrorism. He said he has experience in this area, because he was stationed in the Middle East and worked with the leaders there and knows what is needed to fight terrorism.

As for the national economy, Morris believes the Bush tax cuts should be permanent to give people relief. He said the nation's economy is slowing because of our dependence on foreign oil. He suggests more oil drilling in the U.S., plus aggressive research into alternative fuels. He said more nuclear power plants are needed, and another big oil refinery is needed.

As for health care, he eschews a national health plan and proposes everybody have "mobile" health insurance plans that follow a person from job to job. He said this would spur competition and bring down insurance costs.

As for our area, he wants the U.S. Corps of Engineers to "quit screwing around" and get to work on fixing the levees, closing the MR-Go and rebuilding the barrier islands and marshlands to protect the area from hurricanes.

He said he had a hard decision to make. Though from the Northshore, he said he will represent both sides of Lake Pontchartrain equally.

"It's not about Northshore versus Southshore, it's an American issue," Morris said.

Steve Scalise

The District 9 state senator has a mantra in his campaign for Congress, and that is to bring conservative values back to Congress.

A native of Jefferson Parish, Scalise is a systems engineer with a local technology company. He is a graduate of LSU, and he and his wife, Jennifer, have one daughter.

Scalise is a fiscal conservative and wants to keep the current tax cuts permanent.

"If we don't this will lead to large tax increases to the middle class," Scalise said. "That will lead to economic instability. The people have to have a voice in economic policy.

Along the same lines, Scalise said he would work to make Congress more aggressive in its oversight of such industries as mortgage lending. He said the current sub-prime crisis is the result of Congress not doing its job.

"They didn't stop predatory loan practices," Scalise said.

He said a lot of work needs to be done to rebuild the area after the hurricane. He said rebuilding our coast is important.

"Loss of our coastland led to the increased damage to Louisiana," Scalise said.

He said the money for this could be gotten through federal legislation. He said he will work on a bill that will give the state a bigger share of the off shore oil and gas industry tax.

"The bill would share new and old offshore oil leases, and the new leases will start brining in more revenue," Scalise said. He added the money could be used to build up protection for 100-year flooding.

Like Morris and Reed, Scalise is in favor of separating FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security.

"They've lost their focus," Scalise said.

He also wants to change the Stafford Act, the law that dictates how the federal government shares its resources with states during disasters.

"Right now it is just a lot of red tape and needs to be streamlined," Scalise said.

Also locally, Scalise said he would fight for more federal highway money to fix the roads in St. Tammany Parish.

"We're not getting our fair share," Scalise said.

He sees a need to increase economic development along the Interstate 12 corridor.

Basically Scalise said the federal government should become smaller, lower taxes, cut waste and keep personal freedoms strong.

He is also in favor of President Bush's request to extend the Federal Intelligence Security Act, which allows the government to monitor telephone calls and computer e-mail. He doesn't think FISA interferes with a citizen's freedoms.

"It's narrowly tailored to find terrorists. I think it should be more aggressive," Scalise said.

David Simpson

Covered in saw dust, sweat and grim, former Mandeville firefighter David Simpson returned to his staging base at Fontainebleau High School after Hurricane Katrina only to look over and see Federal Emergency Management Agency workers "flipping burgers, smiling and joking, doing nothing."

After three hard days of sawing trees and searching for survivors, Simpson, 43 and also a lawyer, had enough. The federal government could do nothing right, he said. It was $3.1 trillion in debt, international trade agreements floundered and state and local government policy makers were suffocated by federal mandates.

Fed up with its continued expansion, the Internal Revenue Service, the Iraq war, a troubled economy and more, Simpson scrapped together $10,000 in grass roots support and tossed his hat in the 1st Congressional District race.

To some his ideas are radical - abolishing the Department of Education, eliminating the North American Free Trade Agreement, and halting lavish retirement benefits for lawmakers and more - but his reasoning holds weight, he said.

"When I mention (eliminating) the Department of Education, America rolls over and says, 'Oh my God.' We're not eliminating education; the work is just going to shift to where it needs to be done on a local level. We just can't have this much government and have freedom," he said.

"If we really want to be free we have to get the government back into its cage."

The answer is an orderly dismemberment of the federal government, he said. His plans won't eliminate jobs, he said, but instead shift the powerbrokers to local and state governments.

"Who knows best how to run our schools and our government than the ones in our local schools and government," he said.

It's this school of thought that leads Simpson into other cost-cutting measures. If elected, he would work to eliminate the IRS and Federal Reserve Bank, putting hard-earned money back into the wallets of decent Americans.

"We work half a year for free sometimes to pay the federal government," he said. "How would you like to get some of that money back? When you cut taxes, you will have prosperity. If you cut taxes you will increase tax revenue because more people will be spending."

Abroad he would also fight for immediate withdrawal of troops in Iraq, declaring victory, and instead focus on homeland issues such as private business and the economy that would ultimately end trade agreements with Mexico, Canada and Central American countries.

China, for example, holds most of America's debt, and if it decides to "dump the debt on the free market," American economics would crumble, he said.

"There is serious danger of economic takeover," he said. "It's a massive strategic blunder."

When he speaks his conviction is evident, but he is aware his ideas are viewed as radical. He hopes however, his message will resonate with others. But with little name recognition in his first political battle he realizes his chances of winning are "slim."

But he can't stop speaking on what he calls financial injustice on behalf of the federal government. As the owner of two financial advisor firms, The Fiscal Fitness Co. Inc., and Funding Options LLC., Simpson sees firsthand how hard working families struggle to stay financially afloat.

"All my clients come crying to me," he said. "We're spinning ourselves into oblivion."

"So am I a prophet of doom? No, I believe the American system is so grand that we can actually turn this thing around."

In the end, his campaign is all for his children, he said. After years of trying unsuccessfully to have children, he and his wife, Rachel, had four in five years - Stephen, 5, Hannah, 4, Sophie, 3 and Aimee, 1.

"I look at eight little eyes when I come home, and it frightens me to know what their future may hold. I see a less prosperous life for my children, even a life of solitude. It bothers me deep in my soul," he said.