Voters in St. Tammany, Jefferson, Washington and Tangipahoa parishes will decide tomorrow who will represent them in Congress from the First Congressional District.

Four candidates are running for the office to replace Gov. Bobby Jindal who resigned from Congress after he won the Louisiana gubernatorial race last November.

The Republican candidate is Steve Scalise. The District 9 state senator got 48 percent of the vote during the Republican primary in a crowded slate of GOP candidates. Scalise faced off against state Rep. Tim Burns from Mandeville in an April runoff and handily beat Burns to get to Saturday’s general election. A resident of Jefferson Parish, Scalise is a systems engineer with a local computer company. A graduate of LSU, he is married with one daughter.

A fiscal conservative, Scalise wants to keep the current federal tax cuts in place and cut government spending to help the national economy. He also wants to give Congress more oversight in the mortgage industry in order to prevent future meltdowns in the housing and mortgage industries.

Scalise’s constant mantra in his race for Congress has been to “bring conservative values back to Congress.”

The Democratic candidate is Gilda Reed. A psychology professor at the University of New Orleans, Reed is also from Jefferson Parish. She has been married for 40 years and has seven children and 11 grandchildren.

She said her experience raising such a large family has given her the experience to be in Congress. She said she understands living on a budget and how to handle the economy. Like Scalise, Reed is a fiscal conservative and said the federal government has got to learn to live on a budget.

Both candidates are concerned about rebuilding the area after Hurricane Katrina. Both of them want to take FEMA out from under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security and make it a separate Cabinet post, so that it could respond much more efficiently and effectively during disasters. Reed said the first thing she would do if elected is get Louisiana Highway 25 to four lanes and create another major evacuation route.

Scalise and Reed also want the federal government to do more to fix the levee system, and rebuild our coastline.

Running against Scalise and Reed are two independent candidates from the Northshore. From Hammond is R. A. “Skip” Galan, making his first run in politics.

Mandeville resident Anthony Gentile is also running for the seat. The retired engineer said the issue of illegal immigration must be addressed by Congress if the country is to move forward.