Last week, there were no fewer than six potential candidates - including two former runner ups for the seat and three former city-parish councilmen - looking at the District 31 state rep race. As of today, there could be as few as two candidates qualifying. A special election for the seat is scheduled for Nov. 4, following Don Trahan’s resignation. Trahan is stepping down from the legislature to become Director of External Relations with the state Department of Education. Qualifying for the race opens today and runs through 5 p.m. Wednesday. Only two candidates, family law attorney Nancy Landry, who lost by 33 votes to Trahan last year, and Maurice businessman Troy Theriot, who worked on Trahan’s two campaigns, have officially announced their intentions to run.
This morning, former city-parish councilmen Lenwood Broussard and Rob Stevenson both say they will not be among the field of candidates. While last week he said he was “90 percent” certain he’d be running, Broussard says he now realizes he is not ready to sacrifice the kind of time it would take away from his business and family life. The same goes for Stevenson. Former councilman Randy Menard says he is also now leaning against running, but was waiting to see who else qualified for the race before making a final decision.
Also eyeing a run is Charlie Buckels, vice chairman of the state Republican Party who ran for the District 31 seat in 2003 and lost by 13 votes to Trahan. Reached this morning, Buckels remained noncommittal. “There’s a lot of a considerations,” he says. “If I do something like this, I will not do it half-heartedly; it’ll be diving in with everything I have.