Rep. Lorusso, Nick (R)
District# 94, New Orleans

• District # 94: House District 1
• Party: Republican
• Caucus Membership:Louisiana Republican Legislative Delegation
  Orleans Delegation
• Occupation: Attorney
• Education: Jesuit High School; University of New Orleans, B.A. (1988); LSU Law School, J.D. (1992)
• Spouse: Michelle
• Year Elected: 2007
• Last Year Eligible(Term Limit): 2020
• 2007 Election
  Lorusso narrowly missed winning in the primary election, when he faced three other candidates. He went on to defeat community activist Deborah Langhoff in the runoff, taking 62 percent of the vote. During his re-election bid, Lorusso touted his one Legislative session, claiming his return to Baton Rouge for a full term would put him at the top of a lower chamber full of newcomers.
  

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• Economic: When floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans in August 2005, District 94 was among the city’s hardest hit areas. The district encompasses the lakefront area and City Park as well as parts of Mid-City, Gentilly and Faubourg St. John neighborhoods. One of the district’s eastern boundaries is the London Avenue Canal, one of several waterways breached by floodwaters in Katrina’s aftermath. Water – up to 10 feet in some areas – covered parts of the district for nearly three weeks following the storm. District 94 is showing promise as it continues the rebuilding process. Stores have reopened and some longtime homeowners have returned to rebuild their lives where they had resided for generations.
• Social: Prior to Katrina, the minority population in District 94 hovered around 10 percent. Despite massive demographic shifts in the storm’s aftermath, the district remains largely white and middle class as residents return to resume their lives. Many of the families here located to the area when it was considered a suburb of New Orleans. They never left, even as other whites fled the city for new homes in Jefferson and St. Tammany Parishes in the late 1970s and 1980s.
• Political: The district remains a staunchly conservative island in an area known for libertarian views on many social issues. Residents – both prior to the storm and after – demand fiscal accountability and favor candidates with strong law and order credentials.

• Nick Lorusso returns to the House in 2008 to begin his first full term as a state representative. He was first elected in a special election in March 2007 to replace veteran state Rep. Emile “Peppi” Bruneau, who resigned after nearly eight terms in the Legislature. Lorusso, an attorney and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves’ Judge Advocate General Corp, had never held public office and faced opposition from three candidates, including Bruneau’s son, Jeb. He won and five months later, in the October 2007 primary, faced two of the same candidates and another of Bruneau’s sons, Adrian.
• During a single Legislative session, Lorusso attempted to mix the fiscal conservatism so important to voters in his district with the need to bring state dollars to help residents in the storm-battered region recover. He supported legislation to increase teacher salaries to the southern regional average and that offered tax credits to residents who face higher insurance premiums as they follow the state’s new, post-storm building codes.
  Lorusso gained the ire of some of his colleagues by refusing to back local spending measures that didn’t affect his New Orleans district.
• Lorusso sponsored the state law that allows for temporary successors for legislators called to active duty in the armed services and it’s a good thing – he was serving overseas in 2009 and a temporary replacement was appointed, but he’s back for the 2010 session. Local bills are the name of his game – in 2009, he sponsored a bill relative to audits concerning the New Orleans City Park and a pushed another measure that would have created the Mid-City Security District in Orleans Parish.