Ryan Gatti

Gatti filed numerous bills during 2016, 2017 and 2018. SB 24 would have lowered taxes paid by individuals on oil and gas bonuses and royalties to "zero" but it failed to pass committee.[4] Gatti also partnered with Rep. Tanner Magee to file HB 220 which would have lowered the state portion of the sales tax from 5 percent to 3 percent; however this bill stalled in the House Committee.[5]

Within 23 months of being sworn in, Gatti visited every school in his district delivering a Louisiana Flag to each school. Gatti has held over 50 town hall meetings from Plain Dealing and Castor to Springhill and Haughton. Gatti tells the story of the Mama Pelican on the Louisiana Flag.

In 2003, Gatti ran unsuccessfully for the District 8 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives against fellow Republican Jane H. Smith, a former school superintendent for Bossier Parish. He received 3,456 votes (33.1 percent) to Smith's 6,999 (66.9 percent).[31]

Twelve years later, Gatti narrowly defeated fellow Republican Henry Burns, a businessman and retired military officer originally from Webster Parish, who left the state House after two terms to seek the Senate seat vacated by the term-limited Republican Robert Adley. Gatti polled 14,023 votes (50.6 percent); Burns amassed 13,698 (49.4 percent).[32]

Gatti ran for state senator as an intra-party critic of the term-limited Bobby Jindal, who as the departing governor launched a brief unsuccessful bid in the 2016 presidential campaign. Gatti is a close friend and supporter of Jindal's gubernatorial successor, Democrat John Bel Edwards of Tangipahoa Parish, whom Gatti met while attending LSU Law School. In 2014, Edwards delivered a campaign speech at Gatti's law office.[33] Gatti was a large donor to Edwards as well[34] despite his position as the vice president of the Bossier Parish Republican Party.[35] U.S. Senator David Vitter, the Republican choice, lost the race for governor in 2015 to Edwards.

Upon his election, Gatti promised to work to halt Planned Parenthood from harvesting and selling organs from aborted children. He pledged to support higher education, to return local control to school boards, to eliminate the Common Core State Standards Initiative, to address state budgetary shortfalls, and to support policies to enhance Louisiana's energy industries.[36]

In March 2016, Gatti joined the Senate majority, 29–10, to increase the state sales tax for five years, as proposed by Governor John Bel Edwards.[37] A House and Senate conference committee subsequently trimmed the five years to twenty-seven months, from April 1, 2016, to June 30, 2018. Gatti voted against renewal of the sales tax in 2018 keeping a promise to his constituents.[38]

In April 2018, upon the urging of Christian groups, Gatti voted against a bill which would have made it illegal to have sex with animals stating that the bill was simply a "Trojan horse" and that "the real purpose of the bill had nothing to do with bestiality."[39][40] Several laws are already in place in Louisiana clearly making it illegal to commit this crime against the law this law was unnecessary. This bill was eventually passed only after it was not amended to change the remaining parts of the statute it was amending.[41]

In 1992, Gatti graduated co-valedictorian of Airline High School in Bossier City. He then procured his undergraduate education in three years from Louisiana State University in the capital city of Baton Rouge, at which he was president of the fraternity, Kappa Sigma. Gatti attended the Honors College and was awarded Sophomore's Honors Distinction. Gatti was accepted to LSU Law Center serving as student body president and as student member to the Louisiana Board of Regents. While at Louisiana State University Law Center, he was a clerk to the state Senate.[35] From 2007 to 2009, he was a judge of worker's compensation cases in Shreveport. He also owns and operates a farm near Plain Dealing in northern Bossier Parish, at which he grows oak trees.[35] Gatti has operated his law firm since 2000.[42]

The son of Robert and Jean Gatti, Senator Gatti has three brothers, Robbie and Jennifer Turner Gatti, Randy Gatti, and Regan Gatti.[43] He is married to the former Susan Lockhart, formerly an assistant professor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport and previously the assistant headmaster at Providence Classical Academy in Bossier City.[35] Susan Gatti received her PhD in psychology from LSU Baton Rouge and has published research in that area.(S.L. Gatti). The couple has three living daughters, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Gatti. Another daughter, one of special needs since birth, Rebecca Leigh Gatti, died in 2017 at the age of ten.[2][43] Rebecca's struggle with a brain injury caused by an avoidable medical error is chronicled in a family blog.[44]

At the time of his legislative election, Gatti was on a Christian mission trip to Haiti.[36] He has made such trips to El Salvador and Mexico as well. Since 2012, he has been a trustee of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

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