BATON ROUGE — Qualifying for East Baton Rouge mayor-president has ended and nine candidates will head to the Nov. ballot for the position. That now makes four Republican candidates, two Democratic options and three independent, for a total of nine people.
Ryan “Badd Biddness” Carter, William “Champagne” Roundtree, Emile “Sid” Edwards and Nathaniel Hearn were the four candidates to enter on the last day of qualifying. They join Tammy Cook, Steve Myers and Gregory Taylor, the three who qualified on July 18 to enter the race officially.
Those seven join incumbent Sharon Weston Broome and former state representative Ted James, both Democrats, who qualified on July 17th for the role.
Qualifying for the November 5th election was from July 17-19.
Who is running for mayor
Ryan “Badd Biddness” Carter & William “Champagne” Roundtree are both registered as independents. Emile “Sid” Edwards & Nathaniel Hearn also officially qualified Friday morning, July 19, to run for East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President. Both are registered as Republicans.
Tammy Cook is a realtor in the Baton Rouge area for Keller Williams. She is a registered Republican.
Joining the Republican is another candidate from the same party, Steve Myers. He too is a realtor.
Gregory Taylor is a registered independent and now another candidate for the mayor’s race. Taylor is a mechanic and calls himself an “everyday” guy. His mother is a U.S. citizen and despite him being born in Canada, he’s also a U.S. citizen. He’s been in Baton Rouge over two years.
“I’m so sick of these elite politicians and they don’t care about the average person. Somebody’s got to stand up and try, at least try to make a difference. We need a government that represents the people,” Taylor told UWK.
Ted James qualified around 9 a.m. at Baton Rouge City Hall after announcing his candidacy in February 2024. James is a Baton Rouge native having graduated from McKinley High, Southern University and A&M College and the Southern University Law Center.
In November 2011, James was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives, where he served three terms. During his tenure, he chaired the Administration of Criminal Justice Committee and the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus. For the past two years, James has served as regional administrator for the Small Business Administration, overseeing operations in the SBA’s South Central region, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
He is also the proud father of his daughter, Harper Ryan James. James started July 17 with a breakfast in Baton Rouge, meeting with his supporters.
“Public service is an honor. That was true for me as a state representative, as chairman of the Louisiana legislative black caucus, as a Biden Administration appointee with the Small Business Administration, and soon, as focused new leadership for my home as the next Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish.
The question I get most often is ‘Why now? Why not wait your turn?’ And the first thing I tell people when they ask that question is that, ‘We’ve had one person as our Mayor-President for the past eight years. That’s a long time. Long enough that we can tell if this is working or not.’ It is not.
I know I can make a difference for this community. And I know that tomorrow isn’t promised. The longer we wait for the Baton Rouge we deserve, the less time we have to spend in it.”
Ted James
Incumbent Sharon Weston Broome is seeking her third term in November 2024 as East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president. She qualified at Baton Rouge City Hall around 9:30 a.m. on July 17, 2024.
Mayor Broome graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and earned her master’s degree in communications from Regent University. She has also been an adjunct instructor at Louisiana State University, Southern University, and Baton Rouge Community College.
Broome made history in 2016 as the first woman elected mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish. Prior to that, she served on the city’s Metro Council and in the State Legislature, where she held positions as speaker pro tempore in the House and president pro tempore in the Senate.
“People have said elections are about the future and I’m here today to say that the future of East
Baton Rouge Parish is bright thanks to the foundation of results I have been able to achieve over
the past 7+ years. Working together we have achieved positive results in reducing violent crime,
addressing new roads to reduce traffic through MoveBR, improving drainage and reducing
flooding. I inherited a city-parish with little-to-no opportunity for disadvantaged business and
have since created the first disadvantaged business program that secured over $50 million in
opportunities for small and minority business, including over 27% of MOVEBR going to DBE
businesses. This has created a solid, secure foundation for the parish and I’m excited to work and
build a stronger parish over the next 4 years.The MoveBR program has finally synchronized lights and has dozens of projects in process and ready to begin work on that will reduce traffic for residents.
When I took office after the great flood of 2016, we came together to begin working on addressing drainage issues and to reduce flooding throughout the parish – and we have done
that by removing over 70,000 pounds of debris from canals and bayous around the parish. This
work led to a 20% reduction in flood insurance premiums for our businesses and homeowners.
And this work will continue.Because we have addressed the infrastructure needs of our parish and built a solid foundation,
we can now focus on the continued improvement of everyone’s quality of life here in the parish.
Even though our parish has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, thanks to new businesses
like Amazon locating here and creating hundreds of new, good paying jobs, we must work to keep
our best and brightest here at home after they graduate. That means improving the Riverfront
beginning with a new convention center and hotel in place of the River Center to attract larger
conventions to increase the economic impact on businesses not only downtown but across the
parish.We have accomplished so much over the past nearly 8 years but there is more work to be done
Sharon Weston Broome
to make our parish better. I’m asking the voters of East Baton Rouge to honor me with another
term so we can continue to do the hard and important work to improve the quality of life for
everyone.”
Who is not running for East Baton Rouge mayor-president
David Tatman, a once hopeful Republican candidate for mayor, decided on July 4th not to run.
“I know that I could have provided the kind of leadership that would’ve changed the narrative about East Baton Rouge Parish. I would’ve put the right people in place to get the job done. I would’ve worked with the entire community in order to make real positive change and make Baton Rouge a place where people wanna move to not away from. I just can’t win the race,” Tatman said.
Current East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore and U.S. Congressman Garret Graves has been tossed around as potential candidates, but both confirmed to UWK they will not run.
The election is set for November 5, 2024.
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