Despite the divergent political philosophies of the two men running for the First Congressional District, Democrat James Harlan and incumbent U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise, a Republican, do share similar thoughts on a variety of issues.
Scalise, who won a special election earlier this year to fill the seat vacated by Gov. Bobby Jindal, prides himself on being a conservative whose goal is “to restore conservative values to the Congress.”
  
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Both candidates are pro-life and pro-gun. Scalise lives in Jefferson Parish on the Southshore; Harlan is a resident of Lacombe in St. Tammany Parish. Though St. Tammany Parish takes up the most of the First Congressional District, it also includes Washington Parish and parts of Tangipahoa and Jefferson parishes.
Scalise grew up in Jefferson Parish, graduated from Rummel High School and received a degree in computer sciences from Louisiana State University. He is a systems engineer for a local technology company and was elected to the Jefferson Parish Council and also served as a representative in the Louisiana Legislature. Scalise, his wife, Jennifer, and daughter, Madison, live in Jefferson.
Harlan was born in Colorado and raised in New Orleans. He graduated from Ben Franklin High School, where he met his wife, Mary Ellen. Harlan earned a degree in chemical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. Under a National Science Foundation fellowship, he attended Harvard’s School of Government and earned a master’s degree in public policy.
Though this is his first time running for office, Harlan is no stranger to national politics. He worked with the White House Office of Energy Policy and Planning and the Department of Energy’s Policy and Planning Office and worked for the development of alternative fuels and energy sources. Under President Reagan, Harlan was at the U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corp.’s Policy and Planning office, where he helped implement the Energy Security Act of 1980 to make the country less dependent on foreign oil.
Harlan, Mary Ellen and their two sons, Arief and Ryan, have lived in Lacombe for the past 10 years.
He has owned and operated several companies, the last being a company that acquires and stores natural gas reserves in an effort to keep natural gas prices on an even keel.
Both candidates see rebuilding southeastern Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and protecting it from future floods as a priority.
“It was one of my primary motivations to run for Congress,” Harlan said.
Both candidates agree that to keep the area safer from flooding, the government should build surge gates in the Rigolets and Chef Pass to keep a hurricane’s storm surge from entering Lake Pontchartrain, and flooding both the north and south shores.
Scalise said he also wants to see a comprehensive plan to restore wetlands and the Louisiana coastline.
“Restoring the coastline is critical for flood control,” Scalise said, adding that he is sponsoring a bill in Congress that would use revenue from oil and gas drilling to fund coastal restoration.
Harlan said wetlands restoration is also important, but he added that getting rid of the MR-GO Canal is also essential to protect the area from storm flooding.
“We also need Category 5 levees built and a national program for flood recovery,” Harlan said.
He added the wetlands are important, but he wants to see a more comprehensive approach to saving property from floodwaters.
Both candidates agree that research and development is needed for alternative fuels and energy sources in order to wean the country from its dependence from foreign oil. Both said Louisiana could become a leader in biofuel technology by using sugar cane for ethanol. Harlan said retrofitting cars to burn natural gas is not difficult and would help the state’s booming natural gas industry.
However, Scalise also wants to see the ban lifted on drilling in such areas as Alaska to boost the country’s petroleum supplies. Harlan said that would take too long to get the oil out of the ground. Instead he thinks increasing offshore drilling would be faster and better for the environment.
Where the two men diverge totally is on the current economic crisis.
Scalise voted against the $750 billion bailout bill.
“We should not use taxpayers’ money to help bankers on Wall Street who made the mistakes that cause this crisis,” Scalise said.
Harlan said the bailout plan was a hard pill to swallow but was necessary to kick start the economy. He agrees that “greed ran amok on Wall Street,” but the economy locked up.
“We needed extreme measures to avoid the lock-up,” Harlan said. “The bailout was just a way to boost confidence in the market.”
He thinks the taxpayer will be protected and may eventually get a return on investment. He also said more oversight must be put in place.
“Ideally the government should not have stepped in, but the economy would have halted,” Harlan said. “The trick is not to let the process get politicized and protect the taxpayers.”
Scalise said there were alternatives to the bailout that were ignored by the Bush administration. He said he helped sponsor a bill that would have suspended the capital gains tax and lowered the taxes on profits made by American companies in foreign markets.
“That’s $300 billion right there. Changing tax policy would have freed up more money here. The current tax policy is keeping money out of the country,” Scalise said.
He added there should be a mechanism, too, for insurance on the risk of mortgage-backed securities, which is at the heart of the problem.
“Let the profit sector assess those values and pay for the insurance on these bad risks,” Scalise said.
Harlan describes himself as a moderate Democrat and said he is willing to work with either Senators John McCain or Barack Obama.
“You need a centrist to be partners with the rest of the Louisiana delegation,” Harlan said.
Scalise thinks that conservative values and cutting taxes are the linch 0pins to putting the United States back on the right track. He especially wants to cut government spending.
“We must control spending and not raise taxes,” Scalise said.
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