Moving District 18 Forward

The rising cost of living is placing tremendous pressure on families, seniors, and small businesses. Byron will focus on insurance reform, relief on essential goods, utility assistance, housing access, and practical steps that help residents afford to live, work, and raise their children in District 18.

• Reform Louisiana's insurance system and hold insurers accountable.
• Expand the Louisiana Fortify Homes Program and storm-mitigation support.
• Provide responsible insurance relief for small businesses.
• Increase transparency around major rate increases.
• Improve road safety to help address automobile insurance costs.
• Support recurring sales-tax relief on necessities such as diapers, formula, school supplies, and over-the-counter medications.
• Expand utility relief, energy-efficiency assistance, workforce housing, grocery access, and pharmacy access.

Economic development should create meaningful benefits for local workers, entrepreneurs, and communities. Public incentives should be tied to local hiring, workforce development, employee training, and community investment.

• Put District 18 workers first in publicly supported projects.
• Expand apprenticeships, technical education, and workforce partnerships.
• Support small businesses with startup assistance, microloans, and technical support.
• Invest in Louisiana's traditional and emerging energy economy.
• Protect family farms, rural producers, agriculture, forestry, and rural agribusinesses.
• Strengthen rural roads, broadband, freight corridors, and food systems.

Too many families struggle to obtain affordable, timely healthcare, especially in rural and underserved communities. Byron supports targeted solutions that reach residents facing the greatest barriers to care.

• Protect rural hospitals and clinics.
• Expand telehealth access, broadband, and patient education.
• Improve maternal health, prenatal care, postpartum care, and provider recruitment.
• Strengthen mental-health services, addiction recovery, crisis response, and awareness of 988.
• Build Louisiana's healthcare workforce through incentives, partnerships, and loan forgiveness.
• Address health disparities tied to income, age, race, ZIP code, transportation, and provider shortages.

Roads, bridges, drainage, broadband, ports, and transportation corridors affect daily commutes, emergency response, education, healthcare, commerce, and disaster readiness.

• Modernize roads and bridges to improve safety and reduce congestion.
• Invest in drainage, flood protection, and stormwater management.
• Expand rural broadband.
• Strengthen ports, logistics infrastructure, and transportation connections.
• Plan responsibly for residential and industrial growth.

Louisiana's future depends on preparing students and workers for college, technical training, apprenticeships, direct entry into the workforce, and long-term economic mobility.

• Expand career and technical education.
• Strengthen partnerships among schools, employers, colleges, universities, and technical programs.
• Increase dual enrollment, industry credentials, and career experience.
• Expand apprenticeships, internships, and work-based learning.
• Help young professionals build their futures in Louisiana.
• Connect education programs to regional workforce needs.

Taxpayers deserve transparent, efficient government that uses public resources responsibly and focuses on measurable results.

• Increase public reporting on spending, contracts, incentives, and major investments.
• Hold incentive recipients accountable for jobs, wages, local investment, and community benefits.
• Audit ineffective programs and reform or discontinue programs that fail to deliver results.
• Focus on long-term fiscal stability and responsible budgeting.
• Make government more transparent, efficient, and accessible to residents.

Protecting South Louisiana's coast is essential to the economy, culture, food supply, energy sector, and future of the state.

• Expand coastal restoration, hurricane protection, and flood mitigation.
• Build resilient roads, bridges, ports, utilities, drainage systems, homes, and businesses.
• Protect Louisiana's working coast and industries connected to fishing, seafood, shipping, energy, tourism, and restoration.
• Support fishermen, dock operators, processors, transporters, and seafood businesses.
• Invest in docks, cold storage, processing facilities, port infrastructure, and transportation links.
• Give fishermen and working-coast communities a seat at the table.

Every family deserves to feel safe at home, at work, at school, and throughout the community. Public safety requires resources, trust, accountability, youth opportunity, mental-health support, and survivor-centered responses to serious crimes.

• Support law enforcement and first responders with compensation, equipment, training, and resources.
• Strengthen trust and accountability between law enforcement and residents.
• Invest in youth opportunity, mentorship, recreation, and workforce preparation.
• Expand mental-health crisis response and behavioral-health partnerships.
• Combat human trafficking with accountability for traffickers and support for survivors.
• Improve trafficking-recognition training and public awareness.
• Close rural and suburban service gaps for survivors.

Strong communities depend on stable families, accessible services, economic opportunity, and a government that does not allow residents to fall through the cracks. Veterans and military families deserve accessible healthcare, stable housing, employment support, mental-health care, and help obtaining the benefits they have earned.

• Improve benefits navigation for veterans and military families.
• Strengthen parish-level veteran services.
• Expand employment, training, credential, and public-sector hiring opportunities for veterans.
• Support veteran-owned businesses.
• Improve mental-health, suicide-prevention, housing, disability, and healthcare assistance.
• Build communities where families can remain and thrive with housing, healthcare, infrastructure, schools, safety, and opportunity.