Born and raised in Louisiana, John Schroder graduated from Southeastern Louisiana University. He’s described as an authentic conservative leader looking to create an efficient, accountable and smaller state government while advocating for fiscal responsibility, traditional family values, civil service reform, controlling the size of the state government, and revamping the state’s public university system.

After holding a meet and greet with a group of public officials and members of the press Nov. 1, Schroder sat down for an interview with the NPJ.  Natchitoches is one of his many stops while campaigning for the runoff election for Louisiana State Treasurer.

Schroder’s main message has two parts. First, people need to take their voting rights seriously.

“It bothers me that people aren’t going to vote,” he said. “It’s one of our most prized rights as citizens.” The primary election had low voter turnout and Schroder is currently campaigning to try and turn this around at the runoff election on Nov. 18.

Early Voting for all interested voters will be conducted in the Registrar of Voters Office: Friday, Nov. 3; Saturday, Nov. 4; Monday, Nov. 6 – Thursday, Nov. 9; and Saturday, Nov. 11 daily from 8:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.

The second part of Schroder’s message is that the state government overall has to learn how to live within a number and not continue to grow when the economy isn’t.

“This formula doesn’t work,” he said. “It’s not fair to turn to taxpayers to pay for it. The government has to live within its means, gain the public’s trust, and move on from there.”

Shroder served 10 years in the legislature, 8 of which was spent on the Appropriations Committee. He’s seen first hand what the problems are.

Perhaps the biggest problem Louisiana is facing is the spending of the state is not comparable to what income is. The answer to this is to cut spending and raise taxes. Shroder says he’s for cutting spending. The debate revolves around where to cut down on spending. Where do you start?

“This isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing,” he said. “It’s math.”