October 15
October 15, 2007
Ruberta LaCoste
October 17, 2007The two candidates for the state 21st Senatorial District seat in the Oct. 20 election have one thing in common: all are concerned greatly about coastal preservation.
The 21st Senatorial District, covering mainly St. Mary Parish, has incumbent state Sen. Butch Gautreaux, who has served two terms in the House and one in the Senate, running against Clayton Diaz, who is making his first run for political office.
Democrat Gautreaux, 59, sits on the select Coastal Restoration and Flood Control Committee and the standing Finance Committee. He said he wants to develop jobs with better benefits packages, and is concerned about health care, especially Leonard Chabert Medical Center.
“Their patient count has doubled since Katrina,” he said. “The care is excellent, but without adequate funding, it will run into problems.”
Gautreaux would like to see a new outpatient clinic built at Chabert.
The senator is also worried about the high cost of homeowner’s insurance. He said many homeowners are paying higher insurance premiums than mortgage payments.
“The insurance industry fought my legislation,” he said. “I’m disappointed in the Department of Insurance. They’re not aggressive for consumer rights. We need to take care of consumers without running business off.”
Gautreaux said 1,000 homes in St. Mary flooded because of Hurricane Rita, although, historically, the parish has not had a flooding problem.
The state formed a levee district taking in all of St. Mary Parish.
“We never saw fit before this to do this,” Gautreaux said.
He is supporting fellow Coastal Restoration Committee member Walter Boasso (D-Arabi) for governor. However, Gautreaux will enjoy front-runner Bobby Jindal’s support should Jindal become governor, he said.
“I have a good relationship with all the candidates,” he said. “I will be one of five senior members of the Senate. I’ve been a conservative vote in the Senate. I’ve worked both sides of the aisle.”
Republican Clayton Diaz, 51, is running to fight against corruption in government, and to push for coastal restoration.
He said he will ensure that businesses with operations in Louisiana, though claiming to be owned out-of-state, pay taxes to Baton Rouge.
Referring to himself as a “born again Catholic,” Diaz is vowing to “keep God in every decision I make.”
His campaign slogan is “Let’s sweep the politics and corruption out of Baton Rouge, and the criminals out of our neighborhoods. It’s time we take the state back.”
As much as anything, Diaz is focused on beating Gautreaux, asserting he “whipped his butt” in a recent debate-a claim Gautreaux readily dismissed.
“I can do better than he can,” Diaz said. “He’s part of the problem.”
Diaz, who is disabled, said he went to Gautreaux for help to resolve a dispute with the state Department of Revenue, but claimed that the senator did not give him his full attention. Partly due to this, Diaz decided to run against Gautreaux, who was then unopposed.
(Gautreaux said Diaz wanted the Department of Revenue to forgive $9,000 in income taxes. Tax lawyer Robert Boudreaux told Diaz to apply to the department. “He (Diaz) has been on the warpath,” Gautreaux said.)
Diaz said the state Republican Party told him, “We’ve been trying to find someone to run against Gautreaux,” but that the party would wait until Oct. 10 to decide whether to support his candidacy.
“I told them, I’m beholden to no one,” he said.
Diaz wants Baton Rouge to buy dredges for the state’s barrier islands, saying a half-mile-wide island could be built up from the Atchafalaya River to Fourchon using rock barriers in some areas.
He also would like to see levees constructed on Louisiana’s coastline, among other parts of the state.
“We could put levees around the state, and still have money left over,” he said, “but everybody’s worried about lining their pockets.”
