Stephen Ortego - Platform

Redeem Our Culture

VALUE LIFE

"Redeem our culture by putting our values in Acadiana first. We value life, family, community, our identity and French language..."

At every opportunity, we must defend the right to life of the unborn, the right to life of the weak and the elderly. And we must promote ethical scientific research that does not destroy human life at its earliest stages.

VALUE THE FAMILY

The family is based on the sanctity of marriage. Families are the building blocks of society. Families need to be supported with good jobs and good education.

VALUE THE COMMUNITY

Those who are less blessed are taken care of and this should be done at the community level if the family cannot. The government that is closest to the people is the most effective and efficient - the government of the community.

VALUE THE LAND AND NATURE

We should be good stewards of God’s creation... cleaning our bayous and restoring our coastline, while also keeping the rights and resources for hunting and fishing so our traditions can flourish for generations to come.

VALUE WHO WE ARE & OUR LANGUAGE

We redeem our culture by living our French heritage and speaking our language, not by placing it in a glass case in some museum, but by affirming our identity in our language, our music, our food, our joie de vivre, our very lives. C’est qui on est. All of these values are who we are.

Create More Jobs

EDUCATION As a designer/builder of high-performing homes he creates jobs in the construction industry.
Create new jobs by prioritizing education, especially our universities and technical colleges, so companies will realize a highly qualified workforce. Creating more programs in technical colleges and universities based on ENTREPRENEURSHIP and helping support young entrepreneurs to create the jobs of tomorrow in today’s Louisiana.

ETHICS
We must have the highest ethical standards for both the legislature and the Governor's office, standards that are not based in new bureaucracy but old morality.

ENERGY ECONOMY
Create new jobs by developing our oil and gas industry. If anything made this need obvious, it was the backwards, job-killing Obama moratorium inflicted on our state while we were already suffering from the BP oil spill. Developing our energy economy means both exploring the safest means of drilling while also creating the infrastructure that supports the emergence of new energy sources creating new jobs in Louisiana. Oil and gas companies should be given incentives to diversify so they can lead us into tomorrow’s diverse energy economy.

CULTURAL ECONOMY
Oil and gas may be the largest industry in Louisiana but the largest employing industry in Louisiana is the cultural industry. Just like the film sector has exploded in louisiana we need to further encourage the development of our food, language, dance, and culture.

Teach Our Children

VALUE EDUCATIONStephen Ortego comes from a line of teachers. His grandparents were teachers, his grandfather an agriculture teacher in St. Landry Parish. His mother was a teacher.
The values of our culture are not expressed when we sacrifice our children for a convenient quick fix to our pocketbook. Children are worth more than the price some bean counter in Baton Rouge has placed on their heads.

TEACHERS ARE PROFESSIONALS
We teach our children through teachers who are no longer forced to bear the brunt of budget cuts.

TEACH VALUES
We teach our children our values in our schools and our homes.

FRENCH IMMERSION & BILINGUALISM
We teach our children in our language. French Immersion Schools are proven to have better results. Those who are in them have higher test scores. They are more equipped in this global economy. Some are now musicians who travel the world and others work in oil and gas in Africa tout en français. Most of all they can speak our language. C’est notre identité comme les louisianais. C’est tout dans la fierté de qui on est.