Sean Morrison (Louisiana)
Sean Morrison (Democratic Party) ran in a special election to the Louisiana House of Representatives to represent District 90. He lost in the special primary on November 6, 2018.
Morrison completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Morrison earned a B.A. from Tulane University. He then received his J.D. from Case Western School of Law.
Elections
2018
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.
General election
Special general election for Louisiana House of Representatives District 90
Mary DuBuisson defeated John Raymond in the special general election for Louisiana House of Representatives District 90 on December 8, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Mary DuBuisson (R) | 60.9 | 3,868 | |
 | John Raymond (R) | 39.1 | 2,485 | |
| Total votes: 6,353 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Special nonpartisan primary for Louisiana House of Representatives District 90
Mary DuBuisson and John Raymond defeated Sean Morrison and Brian Glorioso in the special primary for Louisiana House of Representatives District 90 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Mary DuBuisson (R) | 29.5 | 4,263 | |
| ✔ | | John Raymond (R) | 25.2 | 3,643 |
 | Sean Morrison (D) | 25.2 | 3,640 | |
 | Brian Glorioso (R) | 20.1 | 2,912 | |
| Total votes: 14,458 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Sean Morrison completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Morrison's responses.
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
Economic Development Businesses are like individuals. They move to areas that provide a solid, thriving community. They want their employees to be healthy and thriving, with great schools for their kids. When a workforce is uneducated, that increases training costs. When workers are impoverished or burdened with student loan debt, it distracts them from productivity. When hospitals are closing, that raises healthcare costs for employers. When infrastructure is dilapidated it makes it impossible for business to thrive. When communities are weakened, it causes the best and brightest to leave the state. We have focused the last decade on paying businesses to be here, but have stopped investing in the communities needed to keep them here. The result has been a sluggish economy, high unemployment, high taxes, and lack of government services. Rather than trying to pay ever higher prices to more to bring in new outside business, we should reinvest in work, family, and community. Fully fund TOPs, invest in career and technical education, build world class transportation and infrastructure, and ensure affordable college tuition. Such a reorientation will help Louisiana businesses thrive. Education Louisiana's blame-teachers-first policies have not worked. K-12 education is just now coming out of a lost decade of frozen funding in the minimum foundation program. Our teachers make about $10,000 less than the national average. High stakes standardized testing has broken our education system, creating up to three weeks of teaching to the test. We need to rethink what education means to Louisiana. If we want our children to stay in Louisiana, then we need to provide proper funding for their schools. We need to treat their teachers with respect by paying them a living wage. We need to provide them with school supplies so they do not need to ask parents for donations for things like copy paper. And we need to provide solid higher education, including community college and vocational schools. Slidell needs a community college in town. If university students must walk down paint-chipped hallways past empty offices that used to hold faculty, then they will leave this state. This has not just been a disservice to our children, but to our economy as a whole. Business does not come to a state infamous for poor education. The result is that we are forced to give larger and larger tax incentives to attract even modest jobs growth. It's unsustainable and we have reached the breaking point. Good, effective, government Good government is a phrase thrown around loosely, and to many it simply means making government as cheap as possible. But it should be about making government both efficient and effective. A government that cannot provide services is a broken government. We need to make government effective at serving people again. To do that we need to invest in programs that improve Louisiana families and communities, because these provide the best return on investment. We need to hold credit and rebate programs accountable for proving up their savings to the public on an annual basis. Those that receive incentive programs should show that they are providing the jobs and community benefits they promised when the received their exemptions. If these programs are not working and not providing a positive return on investment, then they should be revisited and renegotiated. We also need to rethink transparency. It's not a one-way mirror where the public can see in, but politicians can't see the people's wants. We need to find ways to improve public engagement and input. Technology can provide some of those tools, like agency APIs so developers can create programs that share public data in digestible formats. Digitizing and organizing files will significantly lower the costs of public records requests and litigation.
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
Lack of infrastructure is holding us back. Louisiana is the only southern state without a car manufacturer. When Kia was searching, we offered all the best tax incentives we could find to bring them to St. Tammany Parish. But what they wanted was a location to work, and we did not have the infrastructure to accommodate them so they moved on. We do not have the luxury of ignoring the state's $14 billion backlog in road, bridge, port, and infrastructure projects. Addressing that is going to require creative solutions that solicit taxpayer input and industry buy-in. In our Parish, it has become a critical public safety concern. We need improvements to I-12, levees and bridge repairs in Slidell, and storm protection projects in the Rigolets. We need to understand how to take better advantage of the myriad funding sources for coastal protection, like Restore Act and the new GOMESA funding. I know how those programs work due to my career in coastal management. Most importantly, for our district to compete with the rest of the state, we need to work together across the parish and municipalities to build shovel-ready projects, complete with plans, permits, budgets, and even talking points. Nobody funds ideas.
Do you believe that it’s beneficial for state legislators to have previous experience in government or politics?
People are sick of hearing that nothing can be done to serve them. I have spent my career as an attorney working as a public servant within government. I know how to overcome the obstacles to great service. My experience solving problems within government will bring real value to the district. I believe that our government needs to get back in the business of serving its citizens first and helping Louisiana business thrive. I want to ensure that people receive the services the state offers in an effective and efficient way. That requires investing in work, family, and community.
Both sitting legislators and candidates for office hear many personal stories from the residents of their district. Is there a story that you’ve heard that you found particularly touching, memorable, or impactful?
Many people here work hard, but are still right on the edge of struggling. They are typically one something away from economic disaster - one paycheck, one car accident, one emergency room visit. They don't make enough to provide a cushion of savings to handle a change in circumstance. Unfortunately, they typically earn just too much to receive any assistance until the worst does happen. Not too long ago I was speaking with a neighbor. She has three girls, her husband works nights, and she is a substitute teacher. She was talking about her sinus infection, and mentioned that she was not going to a doctor because the copay was too high. Instead, they were using the money to pay for her girls to buy school supplies. This decision did not seem strange to her, as it was the kind of decision she made every day, but it struck me immediately. Nobody should have to choose between seeing a doctor for basic medicines and being a good parent.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
- Louisiana House of Representatives
- Louisiana House of Representatives District 90
- Louisiana state legislative special elections, 2018
- Louisiana State Legislature
External links
Footnotes
