Rep. Ponti, Erich E. (R)
District # 69, Baton Rouge

• District # 69: House District 1
• Party: Republican
• Caucus Membership: Capital Region Legislative Delegation
  Louisiana Republican Legislative Delegation
• Occupation: General Contractor
  
• Education: Catholic High, Baton Rouge, 1983; Northeast Louisiana University, B.S. Construction Management
• Spouse: Amy
• Year Elected: 2007
• Last Year Eligible(Term Limit): 2020
• 2007 Election
  Clearing a packed field in the primary, Ponti went on to topple well-known retired Entergy spokesperson Bill Benedetto, a fellow Republican, with 63% of the vote in 2007.
  

• Louisiana Map
• District Map
• Metro Map
• Economic: District 69 is located within East Baton Rouge Parish. It runs from small gated subdivisions along Jefferson Highway and Old Hammond Highway and older, established neighborhoods like Tara to fast-growing areas along Tiger Bend Road and O’Neal Lane. District 69 also has plenty of commercial and retail business, especially in the growing Jones Creek area and on busy Airline Highway, Siegen Lane and Coursey Boulevard.
• Social: The vast majority of District 69 residents are white. Most residents are middle- to upper-middle class professionals and small business owners. Many are retired and still live in homes they built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The district includes some blue-collar apartment dwellers. The eastern parts of the district were once heavily rural, but residential and retail development has overtaken them.
• Political: This district is solidly conservative. Republicans like David Vitter, Bobby Jindal and Jay Dardenne have traditionally carried the district by margins of three-to-one. In fact, a Democrat has not won in District 69 in recent history. There has been some racial change, however, with the African-American demographic increasing from 6% to 8% since 2003.

• Republican Erich Ponti replaces Baton Rouge Rep. Gary Beard, who vacated his seat to make an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2007.
• As a member of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee, he’ll play major role in the upcoming redistricting process. He’s also interested in legislation that impacts the construction industry and economic development activities in his district.
• If Ponti is to carve out a specialty niche in the House during his first term, it’ll surely be related to his knowledge of construction – still a ripe topic as Louisiana continues to rebuild and adjust to a new statewide building code. The owner of Accent Construction in Baton Rouge, Ponti has also served as vice president of the Louisiana Home Builders Association. As Vice Chair of the House Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, Ponti is the only freshman to be appointed to a committee leadership position in the House.
• On other fronts, expect Ponti to be a top fiscal conservative in the House, as he has already vowed to oppose almost all taxes and has a well-defined personal philosophy on how state money should be spent. Ethics reform, in fact, is one of Ponti’s banner promises from the campaign trail; he was one of many candidates to support the Blueprint Louisiana ethics reform agenda. In the area of health care, Ponti does not favor closing charity hospitals but is open to exploring other reforms to the system.