Stuart Bishop Politician
Stuart James Bishop (born August 19, 1975) is a businessman in Lafayette, Louisiana, who is a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 43. He succeeded his fellow Republican, Page Cortez of Lafayette, who instead became the District 23 state senator. With no previous political experience, Bishop was the only unopposed candidate for an open House seat in the Louisiana nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 22, 2011.Similarly, Cortez had no opponent in the Senate race to succeed the term-limited Michael J. Michot, another Lafayette businessman and a Democrat-turned Republican. A third Republican, former state Representative Ronnie Johns of Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish, also ran unopposed and succeeded the term-limited Willie Landry Mount in the District 27 seat in the state Senate.A native of Jeanerette in Iberia Parish, Bishop graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1997, after leaving LSU, he moved to Lafayette. He is an officer of his family's business, Baldwin Redi-Mix Concrete. Bishop and his wife, the former Kim Dugas, have two children.Even before it was clear that Bishop would run without opposition for the House seat, the candidate drew the endorsement of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry Bishop also carried the support of the TEA Party movement, which endorsed his candidacy based on Bishop's stated belief in smaller government and the desire to reduce regulations that hamper business growth.Bishop said that his state is moving in the right direction: "I believe that business is obviously the backbone of everything, and I’m going to be a pro-business politician by all means.” Bishop is a member of the Lafayette Education Foundation, the Concrete and Aggregate Association of Louisiana, the National Redi-Mix Concrete Association, and Downtown Lafayette Unlimited.