Steve Pugh (Louisiana politician)

Stephen E. Pugh, known as Steve Pugh (born April 1, 1961), is a businessman and financial advisor from Ponchatoula, Louisiana, who is a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 73 in Tangipahoa Parish.

Pugh is a native of Hammond in Tangipahoa Parish. In 1979, Pugh briefly attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. In 2000, he graduated as an Accredited Asset Management Specialist (AAMS) from the College of Financial Planning. From 1978 to 1999, Pugh operated a floral shop. From 1981-1984, Pugh chaired the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. He is Roman Catholic. His wife is Elizabeth Pugh, and the couple has two sons, Stephen and Christopher.

With no previous political experience except a competitive but losing campaign for the District 73 seat in 1991, Pugh was elected to the state House in 2007 for the seat vacated by the term-limited Republican Henry "Tank" Powell. Pugh led in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 20, having polled 6,108 votes (43.7 percent). He was scheduled to enter a runoff election with fellow Republican Michelle Aycock, who received 3,327 votes (23.8 percent). A third Republican, Tony Licciardi, and a Democrat, Scott Ploof, trailed with 2,971 and 1,566 votes, respectively. Aycock, however, decided not to contest a runoff election, and Pugh hence won the seat without opposition in the general election.

Pugh is an advocate for the elderly and the deaf and hard-of-hearing. He is the legislative point man of the free captioned telephone and telecommunications relay services provided by Hamilton Relay in District 73 and later throughout the state.

In the face of a large state budget shortfall in 2011, Pugh addressed the Southeastern faculty senate and opposed cuts in higher education and health. Instead, he urged his colleagues and Governor Bobby Jindal to work with State Treasurer John Neely Kennedy, who had submitted a 16-point plan for trimming the budget and identifying more efficient methods of operations.

In his first term, Pugh served on the committees of (1) Commerce, (2) House and Governmental Affairs, and (3) Municipal, Parochial, and Cultural Affairs. In the 2011 legislative session, Pugh supported a successful House measure to provide for random drug screening of welfare recipients, but the measure died procedurally in the State Senate. Pugh, meanwhile, opposed the establishment of a commission to determine how the state might gradually abolish its income tax.

Pugh was handily reelected in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 22, 2011. He defeated fellow Republican David P. Englade, 7,464 (81.1 percent) to 1,740 (18.9 percent). Pugh had a much closer contest in his 2015 reelection. In the primary held on October 24, he defeated fellow Republican Tim Bailey, 5,341 (51.6 percent) to 5,003 (48.4 percent).