Joe Stagni

Joseph Anthony "Joe" Stagni
Louisiana State Representative for District 92 (Jefferson Parish)
Incumbent
Assumed office  April 2017
Preceded by	Tom Wilmott
Born	December 11, 1963
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Denise Stagni

Joseph Anthony Stagni, known as Joe Stagni (born December 11, 1963),^[1] is a chiropractic physician who is a Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Kenner in Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans. The district also includes part of Metairie and St. Rose.

Stagni won the District 92 seat in a special election in the spring of 2017. In a turnout of 10 percent, Stagni polled 73 percent of the ballots cast. With 2,333 votes, he defeated fellow Republican Gisela Chevalier and Democrat Chuck Toney, who finished with 13.4 percent and 13.1 percent, respectively. Toney had stopped campaigning early in the race because of "a personal family situation" that developed after the deadline to withdraw his name from the ballot.^[2]

Stagni succeeded Republican Tom Willmott, who resigned in November 2016 to join the Kenner City Council, the same body on which Stagni was a member from 2006 to 2014, when he was term-limited.^[2]

As a Kenner council member, Stagni pushed for legislation to make the awarding of contracts more open and to assess street damage after Hurricane Katrina. Before his council tenure, Stagni was a civic activist who helped to establish term limits for Kenner elected officials and a civil service system to hire on the basis of merit. He also served on the Jefferson Parish Board of Election Supervisors and the Kenner Board of Zoning Adjustments.^[2]

In 2011, Stagni was caught in a sexting scandal because he sent a photograph of himself in his underwear to a Kenner city employee with whom he was having what he admitted to have been an "inappropriate" relationship. Opponent Gisela Chevalier argued in the campaign that the scandal showed Stagni's poor judgment. Stagni, however, said that he and his wife had worked out the matter.^[2]

In addition to Stagni, two other Republicans, Raymond Crews in District 8 and John Stefanski in District 92, also won special elections in 2017 to fill legislative vacancies. Crews succeeded another Republican; Stefanski followed a Democrat, Jack Montoucet, who resigned to join the administration of Governor John Bel Edwards.

In one of his first legislative votes, Stagni joined a group of mostly Democrats to oppose Representative Thomas G. Carmody's bill to permit, via state constitutional amendment, voters to override local officials who order the removal, dismantlement, or defacing of Confederate military monuments. The Carmody bill passed the House, 65 to 31, but was killed in the state Senate when Senate President John Alario, a leading RINO, sent it to a hostile committee. The Legislative Black Caucus walked out of the House to protest passage of the bill.^[3]

Stagni joins Democrats in choosing House Speaker

​ On January 13, 2020, Stagni was among twenty-three Republican lawmakers, known as the Fraud Squad, who voted for the Moderate Republican Clay Schexnayder of Ascension Parish, whose election as House Speaker depended heavily on the votes of thirty-five Democratic lawmakers, along with two Independent legislators, and the Republican defectors. Governor John Bel Edwards made contacts in the House on Schexnayder's behalf. Statewide radio commentator Moon Griffon coined the term "Fraud Squad" for the twenty-three dissidents nominally in the Republican Party.^[4]

Stagni opposes transgender sports bill

In 2022, Stagni voted to uphold Governor John Bell Edwards' veto of legislation to prohibit men from playing on women's sports teams. Some conservatives have hence called for Stagni's defeat in the legislative election in 2023.^[5]

On October 14, 2023, Stagni won reelection to the House, 70 to 30 percent, against another Republican candidate, Michael "Mike" Sigur.^[6]