Page Cortez

Background

A Lafayette native, Cortez graduated from Lafayette High School and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, from which he received two bachelor’s degrees in education and general studies. A former classroom teacher and coach, he is a former member of the Lafayette Parks and Recreation Commission. He is married to the former Angela Stoma (born c. 1964), and they have two children, Matthew and Maria Cortez.

Cortez is a co-owner and operator of La-Z-Boy Furniture and Stoma's (his wife’s maiden name) Furniture and Interiors in Lafayette. He gained name identification in the community through his furniture advertising on local television channels as well as his earlier profile as a coach.

Political career

Cortez entered the House race in 2007 when Republican Ernie Alexander was contemplating seeking a third term. Cortez has been allied with former state Senator Michael J. Michot, a former Democrat and Cortez’s fraternity brother at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and with the then Independent (since Republican) former District 45 State Representative Joel Robideaux, both of whom actively supported Cortez in the race against Patrick LeBlanc through an organization called "Leadership for Louisiana.” In the 2007 House primary, Cortez defeated fellow Republican Patrick LeBlanc, the president of the architectural firm, The LeBlanc Group, and the owner of the private-prison company LCS Corrections Services. Cortez received 7,742 votes (55.5 percent) in the twenty-three precincts, compared to LeBlanc’s 6,218 ballots (44.5 percent). Less than five months after the election, LeBlanc (1954–2008) and his pilot died in a small-craft airplane crash near Abbeville in Vermilion Parish.

Ernie Alexander and then U.S. Representative Charles Boustany, M.D., also of Lafayette, endorsed Patrick LeBlanc for the state House seat, rather than Cortez. Boustany and LeBlanc also endorsed the failed 2008 candidacy of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the Republican presidential nomination. Michot and Cortez questioned LeBlanc’s business activities regarding the building of prisons in Bastrop in Morehouse Parish in North Louisiana, and in San Antonio, Texas. No charges, however, were ever brought against LeBlanc.

When Senator Michot was term-limited, Cortez succeeded him the position. Jerry Luke LeBlanc, the former commissioner of administration under Governor Kathleen Blanco and an Independent, declined to run for the seat and left Cortez without an opponent.

As a House member, Cortez was assigned to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget, the Energy Council, and the House committees on Appropriations, Insurance, and Retirement.

Cortez's early votes in the legislature were successful measures to restrict gifts to elected officials, banning public funds for human cloning, and prohibiting the use of cell phones while driving. He opposed the “Anti-Bullying” bill rejected by the state House in April 2008. Cortez supported a failed measure in 2008 which would make it easier for juvenile offenders who commit heinous crimes to become eligible for parole, a position counter to his ally Robideaux. However, Cortez played an instrumental role in helping victims' rights supporters to defeat the same legislation in committee in 2009.

When he moved up to the Senate, Cortez was succeeded in the House in 2012 by Stuart Bishop, a Lafayette businessman without previous political experience. Bishop also ran unopposed in his House primary, as did a third Republican, former state Representative Ronnie Johns of Sulphur in Calcasieu Parish, who succeeded the term-limited Willie Landry Mount in the District 27 seat in the state Senate.