Reggie Bagala wins state House District 54 seat – NOLA.com

Reggie Bagala, who’s spent the past several years working for Lafourche Parish’s government, won a three-way race Saturday for the open 54th District seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Bagala, 54, finished with more than 58% of the 11,716 votes cast in a district anchored by Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes but also including the Jefferson Parish community of Grand Isle as well as the Des Allemands area of St. Charles Parish. He will succeed Jerry “Truck” Gisclair, D-Larose, who is finishing his third four-year term and can’t run again due to term limits.

Businessman Donny Lerille, 50, Gisclair’s son-in-law, came in second with more than 26%. Ernest Boudreaux, 68, the former police chief of Lockport, pulled in nearly 16% of the vote. 

Voter turnout was more than 45%. 

The candidates, all Republicans from Lafourche, seemed to agree on what they considered the election’s major issues: coastal protection, supporting Nicholls State and expanding access to Port Fourchon on the Gulf of Mexico.

Therefore, much of the discussion on the campaign trail came down to whose background best positioned them to make that vision a reality.

Bagala touted his work as Lafourche’s parish administrator as well as Office of Community Services director for about three years beginning in 2014.

Since early 2017, he’s also served as the Lafourche Parish Council’s auditor, a position that he said trained him to be a watchdog of taxpayer money.

Meanwhile, Boudreaux said he was the only candidate who had previously been elected to a public office. He served as chief of Lockport’s police department from 1986 to 1997, resigning at the start of his fourth term to take a better-paying job at Terrbonne Wireline shipyard.

Boudreaux said he grew to regret his decision to voluntarily leave politics. He’s tried to return to other elected offices through the years, campaigning for Lafourche Parish sheriff, councilman and justice of the peace, city marshal of Houma and Lockport police chief before Saturday’s result.

For his part, Lerille kept a relatively low profile in the race but said he aspired to represent the only community he has ever wanted to raise his family in.

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