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Michael Vallien Jr.
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Michael Vallien Jr. (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Louisiana's 5th Congressional District. He lost in the primary on November 5, 2024.
Vallien completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Michael Vallien Jr. was born in Alexandria, Louisiana. He graduated from Peabody Magnet High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from Louisiana Christian University in 2007. His career experience includes working in advocacy and as a licensed real estate broker.[1]
Vallien Jr. has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1]
- National Association of Realtors
- Louisiana Association of Realtors
- Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors
- National Association of Disability Representatives
- Magnolia Care Center Veterans Home
Elections
2024
See also: Louisiana's 5th Congressional District election, 2024
Louisiana elections use the majority-vote system. All candidates compete in the same primary, and a candidate can win the election outright by receiving more than 50 percent of the vote. If no candidate does, the top two vote recipients from the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their partisan affiliation.
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House Louisiana District 5
Incumbent Julia Letlow won election outright against Michael Vallien Jr. and M.V. Mendoza in the primary for U.S. House Louisiana District 5 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Julia Letlow (R) | 62.9 | 201,037 |
 | Michael Vallien Jr. (D)  | 25.9 | 82,981 | |
 | M.V. Mendoza (R) | 11.2 | 35,833 | |
| Total votes: 319,851 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Dany Kitishian (R)
- Rivule Sykes (G)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Vallien in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Michael Vallien Jr. completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Vallien's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am Louisiana born and raised. I have a wife, Melanie, and a son, Kristopher Michael. I am a God-fearing man who believes in the power of faith and prayer. I come from a working-class household. My mother, Pamela, was a department store manager. My father, Michael Sr., is a truck driver. I am a small business owner of two companies, Disability Blueprint, LLC and Vallien Realty, LLC. I am an advocate for the disabled. I have been and will continue to be a voice for the silenced and neglected. I am a servant and am willing to help my neighbor in any way I can. I take my oaths and commitments seriously. I am committed to serving the needs of all Louisianians regardless of race, color, socioeconomic status, religion, appearance, and sexual orientation. I am not here to judge anyone. I am here to help and ensure that our federal government is doing everything in its power to improve the lives of all of us. At the end of the day, we are all human. We all have needs and desires. Those needs and desires can be fulfilled with legislation that meets individuals where they are. As your representative, I will work tirelessly to ensure that our government is not only taking good care of its people but also moving us towards a more perfect union. It would be my honor to serve as your next representative in Congress.
- I want you to know that your vote matters. Your voice matters. Your concerns matter. The things you expect to receive from your government will never materialize if you do not vote and communicate your concerns.
- I intend to listen to those who are willing to voice their concerns. I intend to reach out to those whose voices have been silenced and project their message as well.
- I believe in the power of faith and love. Those beliefs keep me fighting to right the wrongs of others. Our neighborhoods and communities would benefit greatly with just a little more love and compassion for one another.
I am deeply passionate about the administration of our government agencies. I work with the Social Security Administration daily. I see the challenges that the agency faces. However, there is a disconnect between the agency's mission and the institution of its own policies. The current model is not adequately serving the needs of the public. I intend to work with the agency to achieve a more efficient and fair system. I am the product of an excellent public-school education. I want to work with the Department of Education to improve our schools especially in our rural and poor communities. It is time for new student loan legislation that does not bury our children in debt before they ever get a chance to start a life.
I look up to my mother. She has the biggest heart. She is the definition of a giver and servant of Jesus Christ. She inspires me to be a giver of my time and resources to others who are not as fortunate and blessed as I am. I am rooted in being this way and I could not see myself being anything other than who I am. That is because of the example she had set for me.
I do not have a political philosophy. My philosophy is rooted in the actions and example that my Lord and savior Jesus Christ has set forth. He inspires me to be in service to his people. His love for us all is why I am so passionate about the lives and wellbeing of others. Love is what drives my actions.
I believe an elected official's commitment to the people should be first and foremost. An elected official's integrity must be above reproach. Our commitment should be to the people. All legislation passed should reflect that. An elected official needs to be available at all times and not when it's convenient. An elected official needs to be an effective listener. If an elected official cannot listen, understand, and empathize with your situation they will not be able to advocate for your position adequately. Finally, there must be trust between the public and the elected official.
I am a good listener. I am a giver of my time. I am passionate about improving the lives of those around me. I believe that we all deserve a piece of the American Dream. Through sound legislation, I believe we can improve the lives of others and foster great bonds within our communities.
I believe that someone elected to this office needs to stay true to the principles of advocating for the needs of their constituents. We should be fiscally responsible with the tax dollars we appropriate to legislation and administrative agencies. We need to provide diligent oversight of administrative agencies and situations that have the impact to affect our national and economic security.
I want to leave a legacy of fairness, love, and justice. We are all human. We all have different wants and needs. Despite our differences, we are all the same. We all want to be safe. We all want to be prosperous. We all want good lives for our children and grandchildren. If my time in Congress manages to achieve even small victories in improving the lives of others, I would consider my time there a success.
My first job was as a janitor for The Alexandria Town Talk. I worked there for 4 months before accepting a job as a sales associate at K-Mart.
I struggle with accepting things that I cannot fix or solve that I undertake. I have clients who I feel deserve their disability benefits. However, for various reasons, my efforts to help them were unsuccessful. When you know that you are on the right side of a decision, it is truly disheartening when you get to the end of the road and realize that despite your best efforts is not good enough to achieve a just decision. My failures haunt me, but they also motivate me to continue to improve my craft to ensure that future clients do not suffer the same fate.
I do not believe previous experience is necessary to be an effective representative. Being involved in government or politics does give a representative some insight into the inner workings of agencies or policy making, but that in and of itself should discourage others who do not have that lived experience to pursue public service as a representative.
Our greatest challenge is to reduce the effects of climate change. I am not a scientist, but I believe that we are facing an existential threat to the habitability of our planet. All of the work we are doing to improve our quality of life will be for nothing if we do not have a safe, habitable, and healthy planet to live on.
I believe two years is the right term length for representatives. Two years is enough time to show your constituents that you are moving their agenda forward.
There should be term limits for every position within the federal government and this includes the United States Supreme Court. No position should have a lifetime appointment.
There are many politicians past and present whom I respect and admire. If I had to model myself after one of them, it would be John Lewis. His advocacy towards civil rights and just and fair treatment for all is what I aspire to be. There is nothing wrong with causing a little "good trouble" if it is for a "good and just" cause.
Being a disability advocate, I hear impactful and touching stories all of the time. Each of my clients have taken a unique journey to get to where they are now. There are many stories that come to mind, but I will speak on most of my client's lived experience. Imagine yourself in relatively good health. You are at a job that you enjoy doing. You have been doing that job for years. Over the course of weeks, you start to feel different. Your body does not function the way that it used to. You do not have the energy or the strength to do the things your job requires you to do. You start to miss time at work. You come to a point where you are contemplating quitting your job, but you can't. This is because you have bills to pay and a family to take care of. You push on only to realize something is gravely wrong with you. You see a doctor and find out that you have a condition that is about to change your life forever. You start treatment only to realize that the medicine will not allow you to alleviate your symptoms enough to return to work. Ultimately, you quit your job and decide to file an application for disability. Knowing how serious your condition is, you expect the Social Security Administration to process your claim quickly and accurately. You realize that this is not the case. Your claim is denied for vague reasons. You decide to appeal and receive a denial again. You are puzzled and concerned at this point. What is SSA not seeing? Why is this happening to me? You are about to lose everything you own because you can't get the help you need. In the end, it takes you years to obtain your disability benefits. That's great, but it does not come close to making up for the money you used to make. You find yourself needing additional public assistance programs to make ends meet. This story is not rare. It is happening to our neighbors every day. They deserve better than what they are getting.
We are all different. We all have different ideas on how to move our country forward. There must be some compromise to pass certain pieces of legislation. So long as the compromise does not negatively impact the public as a whole, I am willing to compromise to improve the lives of others.
As a member of the House, I would ensure that any bills for raising revenue were thoroughly researched to justify raising taxes on our people. In order to move certain agendas forward, there must be investment by the federal government through us as the taxpayers. We need to be responsible and communicative to the public to let them know how these bills would impact their lives.
The House should use its investigative powers to root out corruption or incompetence within our government. It should not be a political tool that aims to shame, parade, or belittle anyone in our society.
I am interested in the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the House Committee on Appropriations. We need to ensure that our tax dollars are being spent in the most responsible and efficient way possible. We need to ensure that government agencies are sufficiently doing the work of the people. Bad actors within these agencies' oversight should be exposed and dealt with accordingly. Holding agencies accountable with actionable consequences is the only way to ensure that agencies are doing what is in the best interest of the public.
There needs to be more financial transparency and government accountability. I see the consequences of this in my disability practice. While the pandemic has had a negative impact on most government agencies and corporations, we have come to a point where service and quality should have normalized. This has not been the case. Processing times for Social Security Disability Insurance claims have never been this high. The quality of disability determinations has never been poorer. While I do not expect change to happen immediately, the region I service has not seen even a marginal improvement in service or speed of processing. Agencies who are tasked with assisting our most vulnerable populations need to be held more accountable. The actions and decisions they make have life and death consequences attached to them. Our people should not have to endure prolonged suffering while these agencies try to figure out a solution to get back on track. Our people have paid into the system, and they deserve better.
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Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
Footnotes
Senators
Bill Cassidy (R)
John Kennedy (R)
Representatives
District 1
Steve Scalise (R)
District 2
Troy Carter (D)
District 3
Clay Higgins (R)
District 4
Mike Johnson (R)
District 5
Julia Letlow (R)
District 6
Cleo Fields (D)
Republican Party (6)
Democratic Party (2)
