Louisiana News

Nov. 3 Election Guide: Meet the 6th Congressional District candidates

89.3 WRKF Baton Rouge | By Brooke Thorington

Published October 20, 2026 at 8:11 AM CDT

(left-right) Chauna Banks, Pat Forbes and Lindsay Rubia Garcia are among the challengers for the seat representing Louisiana's 6th Congressional District.

WWNO/WRKF reached out to all candidates, asking them to answer questions on hot-button issues like coastal restoration, data centers, regulation of AI and more. Only three of them responded. You can read their answers below.

The following candidates responded to a questionnaire sent by WWNO/WRKF:

Chauna Banks (D)

Baton Rouge
Metro-Councilwoman 2013 - 2024
20 years experience in education
Chaunabanksforcongress.vote

Abortion/Reproductive health

My Christian faith teaches me that life is sacred, and I personally value the sanctity of life. However, I also recognize that reproductive healthcare involves deeply personal and sometimes medically complicated circumstances.

I do not believe the government should criminalize women or physicians for legitimate medical decisions. There must be appropriate consideration for circumstances involving the life and health of the mother, rape, incest, nonviable pregnancies, and serious medical complications.

These decisions should involve the woman, her physician, her family when appropriate, and her faith—not politicians attempting to practice medicine.

I also believe our discussion of protecting life must extend beyond pregnancy. If we are genuinely pro-life, we must care about maternal mortality, infant mortality, prenatal and postpartum healthcare, affordable childcare, nutrition, safe housing, education, foster care and adoption, and whether families have the economic resources necessary to raise healthy children.

My goal is to reduce unintended pregnancies, protect women's health, support mothers and babies, strengthen families, and make certain women have access to accurate information and quality reproductive and maternal healthcare.

Carbon Capture Sequestration and Eminent Domain

I recognize that carbon capture and sequestration may have a role in Louisiana's energy and industrial future, particularly as traditional industries seek ways to reduce emissions while remaining economically competitive.

However, I will not support carbon capture simply because a corporation labels a project "green" or because significant investment is attached to it. These projects must be evaluated based upon science, safety, environmental impact, groundwater protection, pipeline safety, emergency preparedness, long-term monitoring, and the impact upon the communities where the infrastructure will actually be located.

I am especially concerned about the use of eminent domain for privately driven carbon-capture projects. Eminent domain is an extraordinary governmental power. It should never become a convenient mechanism for taking someone's property primarily to advance a private corporation's economic interests.

Property owners deserve due process, transparency, meaningful community engagement and fair compensation where eminent domain is legally justified.

Economic development cannot come at the expense of people's property rights, health, safety, or quality of life.

Coastal restoration work in LA

I strongly support Louisiana coastal restoration and believe it must remain a major federal priority. Our coast protects homes and communities, but it also protects ports, energy infrastructure, fisheries, navigation routes, industries and economic assets that serve the entire United States. Louisiana has sacrificed a great deal environmentally while helping fuel and move America's economy.

Federal investment should continue in wetlands restoration, hurricane protection, flood mitigation, drainage, resilient infrastructure, sediment projects and other scientifically supported approaches to protecting and rebuilding our coast.

I will also fight to make certain Louisiana receives its fair share of federal offshore-energy revenues and that money dedicated to coastal protection actually reaches the communities and projects for which it was intended.

Coastal restoration is environmental policy, but it is also economic policy, infrastructure policy and protection of Louisiana's future.

Data Centers

I support technology and innovation, and I want Louisiana to compete for the industries and high-paying jobs of the future. That includes data centers and the infrastructure necessary to support artificial intelligence.

However, I do not believe every large economic-development project should receive a blank check from taxpayers simply because it promises jobs and investment. Data centers can require extraordinary amounts of electricity, water, land and infrastructure. Therefore, I support a staged approach to development, ongoing impact assessments, transparency regarding energy and water consumption, and community investment agreements when companies receive substantial public incentives.

Those agreements should include measurable commitments involving local hiring, workforce development, education, infrastructure, local and small-business contracting, and investment in the communities hosting these facilities. We must also protect existing residential and small-business utility customers. Families should not see unreasonable increases in their utility bills because enormous corporations require massive amounts of electricity.

I support economic development, but economic development should benefit the community—not merely happen in the community.

Federal Regulation of AI

I view artificial intelligence as a tool. Like any tool, AI can be used to educate, innovate, improve healthcare, increase productivity and create economic opportunity. It can also be used for fraud, discrimination, manipulation, identity theft, misinformation, and other harmful purposes. Therefore, I believe federal regulation should primarily focus on how AI is used and the harm caused by particular applications, rather than attempting to broadly regulate technology simply because it is artificial intelligence.

Federal protections are appropriate in areas including privacy, cybersecurity, fraud, discriminatory algorithms, children's safety, intellectual property and AI-assisted decisions involving employment, lending, housing, healthcare, education, insurance and government services.

We must also prepare American workers for technological change. I support investments in AI education, technical training and workforce development so that our citizens are not merely consumers of the technology but developers, entrepreneurs and workers participating in the wealth it creates. America must remain competitive in AI while making certain technology serve people—not the other way around.

FEMA reform

Louisiana understands natural disasters better than most states, and our residents also understand the frustration of attempting to navigate FEMA after experiencing one.

FEMA needs meaningful reform.

Disaster victims should not have to become federal-policy experts simply to receive assistance. Applications should be simplified, inspections expedited, communication improved, appeals made understandable, and assistance delivered more quickly.

FEMA must also recognize that Louisiana communities have different circumstances. Federal disaster policy cannot always be administered through a one-size-fits-all approach developed in Washington.

Most importantly, we must invest more aggressively before disasters occur.

It is fiscally irresponsible to repeatedly spend billions of dollars rebuilding communities while underinvesting in drainage, flood protection, elevation, resilient construction, coastal restoration and other mitigation measures.

FEMA should become as serious about prevention and resilience as it is about disaster response.

Immigration enforcement

I believe the United States has the right and responsibility to secure its borders and enforce its immigration laws. I support strong enforcement against human trafficking, drug trafficking, violent criminal activity, organized crime and individuals who legitimately threaten public safety or national security.

However, I reject rhetoric that characterizes every immigrant as a criminal. Immigration enforcement must be constitutional, humane and consistent with due process.

Congress has avoided comprehensive immigration reform for far too long. We need secure borders, adequate Border Patrol resources, functioning immigration courts, sufficient judges and personnel, an efficient legal immigration process, protections for legitimate asylum seekers, and accountability for employers who knowingly exploit undocumented labor.

I also support establishing a rigorous earned legal pathway for qualifying long-term residents who have established lives in America, obeyed our laws and meet clearly established requirements. We can protect our borders and enforce our laws without abandoning America's humanity.

Offshore drilling for oil and gas

I support responsible offshore oil and gas exploration and production. Louisiana's oil and gas industry supports thousands of families, small businesses and communities and remains important to America's energy security. I do not support policies that attempt to abruptly dismantle an industry while our country continues to depend upon the energy it produces.

I also support strong worker-safety and environmental standards and believe corporations must be held accountable when negligence causes environmental damage.

Louisiana deserves a fair share of the revenues generated from offshore production because our coast and communities bear much of the impact associated with supporting America's energy needs.

At the same time, Louisiana must prepare for the future. Emerging energy technologies should represent an expansion of opportunity for Louisiana workers—not abandonment of today's workforce. We can protect traditional energy jobs while simultaneously preparing our workforce for new industries.

Should members of Congress be prohibited from owning/trading stock?

Yes. I support prohibiting members of Congress from actively trading individual stocks while serving in office. Members of Congress receive briefings, conduct investigations, appropriate billions of federal dollars and write legislation that can affect individual companies and entire industries.

Public officials should never use privileged governmental information for personal financial gain, nor should we maintain a system that creates the reasonable appearance that they could.

Members should still be permitted to participate in retirement accounts, diversified mutual funds, broad-market funds and similar investment vehicles that do not present the same direct conflict.

Public service should never become an avenue for private enrichment.

Should elected officials be allowed to sign NDAs?

As a general principle, I do not believe elected officials should sign nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from revealing information the public has a legitimate right to know.

There are legitimate circumstances in government requiring confidentiality—national security, certain personnel matters, pending litigation, protected personal information and legitimate proprietary information are examples.

But an NDA should never be used to conceal corruption, harassment, misconduct, conflicts of interest, misuse of taxpayer dollars or governmental actions that should properly be subject to public scrutiny. An elected official works for the people.

Therefore, transparency should be the rule and secrecy should be the narrowly defined exception.

If you’ve held office before, what legislation are you most proud of and why?

I had the privilege of serving three terms—12 years—on the East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council, representing District 2. I am proud of a body of work that focused heavily on economic and community development, second chances, healthcare access, housing opportunities, neighborhood revitalization, and recreational growth, expansion and maintenance.

One of the legislative initiatives I am most proud of was In My Father's House. I understood that adjudicated, abandoned and blighted properties are more than physical eyesores. They affect surrounding property values, public safety, neighborhood stability and people's willingness to invest in a community. In My Father's House created an opportunity for eligible adjudicated properties to be transferred to qualifying organizations and returned to productive community use. It represented the type of government I believe in: instead of allowing property to remain abandoned indefinitely, find a lawful and creative mechanism to transform a community liability into a community asset.

I am equally proud of my work on Ban the Box/Fair Chance employment policies.

My position was based upon a simple belief: if we truly believe people can be rehabilitated, then society must provide them an opportunity to become productive again. Employment is one of the most important factors in allowing someone who has paid a debt to society to support a family, establish stability and avoid returning to the criminal-justice system. Fair Chance hiring does not mean ignoring someone's history or preventing an employer from conducting an appropriate background review. It means allowing an applicant's qualifications to be considered before automatically excluding that individual because of a criminal-history checkbox. My work ultimately included extending Fair Chance hiring principles to contractors and subcontractors doing business with the City-Parish government.

But I do not define my 12 years of public service by one ordinance.

Some of the work of which I am most proud involved economic and community-development projects that increased healthcare access, expanded housing options, encouraged economic investment and supported the growth, expansion, improvement and maintenance of recreational facilities. I consistently argued that economic development and community development must occur together.

That philosophy was reflected in my establishment of the #NBRNOW Blue Ribbon Commission, which brought stakeholders together to address disparities in economic-development and healthcare opportunities in North Baton Rouge. I wanted investment to reach communities that had experienced generations of disinvestment. For me, economic development has never simply meant announcing that a corporation is building something.

True economic and community development means creating an environment where people can live, work, receive quality healthcare, raise their families, own homes, recreate, start businesses, obtain good-paying jobs and build generational wealth.

That is the record I am proudest of because those efforts were interconnected.

Housing affects health. Healthcare affects economic stability. Recreation affects quality of life and youth development. Employment affects public safety and family stability. Infrastructure affects whether businesses are willing to invest. Government has a responsibility to understand those connections.That is the same approach I will bring to Congress. I do not measure successful government simply by how much money was appropriated. I measure success by what changed for the people because we invested it.

What will be your top three priorities in office?

Economic Opportunity, Small Business & Community Development — Economic opportunity must reach every part of Louisiana's 6th Congressional District—from our urban neighborhoods to rural communities and small towns. I will fight to expand access to capital, federal procurement and contracting opportunities, entrepreneurship, workforce development, apprenticeships and good-paying jobs. Small businesses are major job creators, yet many capable entrepreneurs never receive equitable access to capital, government contracts or technical assistance. I am particularly concerned about the dismantling of programs intended to ensure that historically disadvantaged businesses have a fair opportunity to compete. The government should not guarantee anyone a contract, but the government must guarantee everyone a fair opportunity to compete for one. I also want federal economic-development investments tied to meaningful community benefits, including local hiring, infrastructure, housing, healthcare access and workforce preparation.
Education, Workforce Development & Preparing People for the Economy of the Future — Education has been central to my professional life for more than two decades. I believe America must stop treating college and workforce preparation as competing pathways. We need strong public schools and affordable higher education, but we also need career and technical education, apprenticeships, skilled trades, entrepreneurship, technology education and partnerships among K-12 schools, colleges and universities, employers, labor organizations and emerging industries. The rapid development of artificial intelligence makes this even more urgent. I don't simply want our children using tomorrow's technology. I want them designing it, programming it, owning businesses built around it and participating in the wealth it creates. Whether a young person chooses Southern University, another college or university, a community or technical college, an apprenticeship, skilled trade, military service, entrepreneurship or direct entry into the workforce, that individual deserves a legitimate pathway to economic independence.
Infrastructure, Healthcare, Housing & Resilient Communities — I define infrastructure broadly because strong communities require more than highways. Louisiana absolutely needs federal investment in roads, bridges, drainage, flood protection, broadband, water and sewer systems, coastal restoration and resilient infrastructure. But our communities also need accessible healthcare, quality and affordable housing, recreation, public safety, food security, and reliable services for seniors, veterans, children, people with disabilities and working families. My experience in local government taught me that these issues cannot be separated. A person can have a job but still struggle because transportation is unavailable. A child can attend a good school but struggle because the family lacks stable housing. A community can receive an economic-development project but see little improvement in residents' lives because the jobs do not reach the people who live there. And in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, a person's ZIP code should not determine his or her access to quality healthcare, economic opportunity or a safe community.