Candidates for Louisiana’s governor attend panel in Lake Charles

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) – Five candidates to be Louisiana’s next governor attended an exclusive panel discussion today in Lake Charles.

Each panelist answered a range of tough questions – from Louisiana’s economic future to violence within our inner cities.

Each candidate was given one minute to answer each question, and none of them left a question unanswered, the debate giving many in the audience much to think about.

The five candidates who showed up for today’s panel were former Secretary of DOT Dr. Shawn Wilson, Rep. Richard Nelson, Sen. Sharon Hewitt, candidate Stephen Wagues-Pack and candidates attorney Hunter Lundy.

We spoke with each candidate about what the future of the state will look like under their governance.

“In the next five years we will have an ever-evolving workforce. When you look at the new energy market, whether it hydrogen, wind, carbon, all of these things are huge for us that we have a history of working exceptionally well with,” said Wilson.

“Start reforming our tax code. Let that phase in overtime and I think we’ll see a complete reversal in the population trends. The kids that are now moving to Texas, I think the kids are now going to moving back to Louisiana,” said Nelson.

“Well, under my administration, we’re gonna have kids reading on grade level, we will have reinvented how we deliver education so that our kids are going to work right here in Louisiana,” said Hewitt.

”I think we are the diamond of the South. If we do our jobs right, what we do have to do on top of that is add a good tax climate, a good education system and take politics out of our economy. We have, depending on politicians in Baton Rouge, to solve problems forever. It doesn’t work, its a bankrupt game plan,” said Wagues-Pack.

“Poverty is the number on issue. We’re the number one poverty state in the nation. We can attack that, we can get rid of blight, we can go into community,” said Lundy.

A total of 16 candidates are running in the primary for governor of Louisiana on October 14.

For more about who’s on your ballot, CLICK HERE.

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