BATON ROUGE - Former Congressman Garret Graves issued a call to action to Louisiana voters, urging voters to hold public officials accountable and reflecting on his decade of service in Congress. 

Wednesday, Graves spoke to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club, reflecting on a decade of service. 

When the 6th Congressional District was reconfigured after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the old map was unconstitutional, Graves announced he wouldn’t run again for the seat. 

In the months since leaving Congress, he’s urging Louisiana’s voting base to pay close attention and keep elected officials on their toes.

“In the ten years that I served, I found that the teams on the field, I wasn’t really happy with who was there,” Graves said. “You’ve got to figure out how in the world you’re going to operate under those conditions.”

During his time in Congress, Graves championed the Comite Diversion Projects, fighting for more than a billion dollars in funding and a firm completion date. That project is still years from being done, but when it is completed, it will control flooding in the capital region.

“This place is special,” he said.

Graves says there have been missteps from Louisiana’s past leadership, causing the state to fall to the bottom of national rankings. 

“Our natural resource abundance is off the charts,” Graves said. “I think the reason we don't have the abundance. The reason we're not a rich state is that people squandered, people gave away for political favors. They made selfish decisions with our natural resources. We should be the richest state in America by virtually any measure.”

Then, he had a call to action for voters entering the ballot box. He says for years, public officials have made the same promises to fight crime, improve calls, and improve infrastructure. 

Graves was asked whether he would consider running for governor or another public office. He wouldn’t say, but joked that the period when he was not in public office was a detox.