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WBRZ talks with the 6th Congressional District candidates as early voting begins
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LOUISIANA -- With early voting starting Friday, people across Louisiana are heading to the polls to vote early. One key race on the ballot is the sixth district, which state lawmakers redrew earlier this year.
The new map created a second majority-black district after a federal judge ruled the previous map violated the Voting Rights Act.
Another panel of judges threw out the new map, but the U.S. Supreme Court is allowing Louisiana to use it only for this election cycle.
District Six incumbent Garrett Graves is not running, arguing the new map is unconstitutional.
WBRZ sat down with the three candidates who currently have the most funding.
They are State Senator Cleo Fields (D), who previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 1997 as Louisiana's fourth district representative, former State Senator Elbert Guillory (R), and political newcomer Quentin Anthony Anderson (D).
The new district the three are running to represent stretches from Baton Rouge through Lafayette Parish and then northward to Alexandria and Shreveport.
The first question centered on the new district and its unique opportunities.
"One of the advantages is, you know, if elected, the members of the sixth congressional district won't be sending a freshman to Congress. They're going to send someone to Congress who will be the most senior member of the freshman class," Fields said.
"The differences in people and the differences in economic opportunities. We have cities. Big cities like Baton Rouge and Shreveport. We have excellent farming opportunities," Guillory said.
When you represent a district that's as diverse as this district where you have north, central, and southeast Louisiana, it forces you to have to listen, forces you to have travel, forces you to have to be accessible; otherwise, you're not going to be able to represent the people effectively, and they're going to know," Anderson said.
The cost of insurance premiums is an issue that many people in Louisiana face. If elected, how would you plan to address it?
Fields: "We have to have a real serious conversation with the insurance industry, and I think there needs to be a global bill. You know, you're not going to choose and pick which states you're going to provide homeowners insurance."
Guillory: "Right now, automobile and housing insurance in Louisiana, the automobile insurance costs more than the car. The flood insurance and the housing insurance cost more than the house. That is insanity. We've got to bring more common sense."
Anderson: "So what I want to do is I want to protect Louisianans from crap insurance policies. I know that here in the legislature they're going to do everything they can to try to get bottom-barrel insurance policies here, but I also want to make sure that when people actually call upon their insurance, that they're getting coverage, and they're actually going to get the restoration that they need."
Why are you running for Congress?
Fields: "I want to finish some of the things that I started when I was in Congress years ago. We started great networking for the community to connect Congress to the community, which is so important."
Guillory: "We are out in the country. We are kind of old-fashioned, a lot of people would say, but we have basic country folks values. These are the same values that have made America great. Those values are at stake."
Anderson: "Representation matters, but it's not just about superficial representation. We often have somebody that looks like us that's in a high place, but then that's kind of where the representation ends."
What is your solution to the issue of crime?
Fields: "I truly believe that the root cause of many crimes is a lack of access to quality early childhood education. We can't take a kid in the third grade and say you read below the grade level, so we're going to hold you back. We have to give them that start from the day they were born. If kids go to school and they feel that they're not reading at grade level, there's a lot of depression that goes along with that, and they end up not liking school."
Guillory: "We need two things: we need to let the police do their job. They must enforce the law. The second thing is that we must apply consequences for crimes. Consequences for bad behavior. If it's small bad behavior, then small consequences. If it's serious bad behavior, then serious consequences.
Anderson: "I fully recognize how urgent the issue of crime is for this district, especially with spiking crime rates from Shreveport to Alexandria to Baton Rouge. I just think it's simple-minded to think that simply hiring more cops or sentencing longer will reduce or prevent crime from happening. I believe public safety includes policing but is much more than just policing. It's also about economic development and education. If we only focus on a couple of tools in our toolbox, we shouldn't be surprised that the problem doesn't get fixed. It's a multifaceted problem, and it requires a multifaceted solution, and funding those solutions is what I'd fight for in Congress."
Do you consider yourself someone who can reach across the aisle to get things done?
Fields: "At the end of the day, we can't solve problems if we don't work together. When a baby's crying at night, that baby's not Republican; that baby's not a Democrat; that baby's hungry. A man walking down the street at five o'clock with a pink slip in his hand; he's not a Democrat or a Republican; he's unemployed."
Guillory: "The Louisiana Reentry Program bill that I passed in 2007 was passed unanimously through the House of Representatives. Unanimously through the Senate. Every Republican, Every Democrat. Every Liberal and every Conservative signed on because of my ability to work across the lines."
Anderson: "If you're going to a place with 434 other members that represent wildly different districts, wildly different interests; they have their own ideology; you can't actually go there with an eye towards progress if you don't know you have to compromise. If you go there thinking you're going to set the agenda and trying to get 100 percent of what you want, that's insane."
What's one piece of legislation you would hope to get passed if elected?
Fields: "In the United States of America, we have not raised the minimum wage in 15 years. We want to talk about economic development; let's start paying people for the work they do. That's not a liberal or a conservative thing; it's the right thing to do."
Guillory: The southern border. Let's start with the southern border. It's costing us too much in lives, drugs, and crime. Let's clear up the southern border. That will be one of my primary things."
Anderson: "I think the most urgent thing that we can do right now for the average working American is to raise the minimum wage. It does not matter ultimately what we raise it to initially; we have to raise it because it's been at $7.25 for too long."
What's something you want voters to know about you as they head to the polls?
Fields: "That I'm hardworking. A person who has worked hard and had to work hard all of my life. I'm a person who believes in the value of education because if it weren't for education, I wouldn't be here as a candidate for the United States Congress. When people see me, I want them to see themselves. You can be anything you want to be."
Guillory: "Three things. I love my country, I love my God, and I'm a country boy with country-boy common sense."
Anderson: "I'm not coming at this with an agenda. I think I've been freed up with not being the endorsed candidate of my party. I think I've been freed up by not having big-dollar donors who think they can call me at three in the morning and kind of influence the shape of policy. I think I have the ability to be an independent, objective representative of the district. I have an ideology; everybody does, but at the end of the day, I'm responsive to what your interests are.
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