Posted on 06/02/2011 6:22:11 PM PDT by LdSentinal
JACKSON, Miss. — Longtime state Rep. Jeff Smith of Columbus switched to the Republican Party just before Wednesday's qualifying deadline for legislative races, and he said he still plans to run for the open spot of Mississippi House speaker in January.
Smith has served in the House for 20 years as a conservative Democrat and unsuccessfully challenged populist Democrat Billy McCoy of Rienzi for the speakership in January 2008 — a nail-biter of a contest that McCoy won by a 62-60 vote.
McCoy announced last week that he won't seek re-election to the Legislature, and his decision opened a race for the job of presiding officer of the 122-member body. Smith said last week that he'd run for re-election this year as an independent, and he even filed qualifying papers.
Smith told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he decided to become Republican because the GOP recruited a candidate to run against him. He said he's hoping to secure his re-election in the Aug. 2 party primary rather than waiting until the Nov. 8 general election.
Smith said he now considers himself a moderate Republican.
"I sort of hated to change parties, but I've been so conservative for so long," Smith said. "It's not a big leap from being a super-conservative Democrat to being a Republican. I did have a stop-off for three weeks as an independent."
Democrat Bobby Moak of Bogue Chitto, who's unopposed for re-election in his own district, is also running for speaker. So is Republican Sid Bondurant of Grenada, who faces a Democrat in his district. Others say they're considering running for the top job in the House, which McCoy has held since January 2004.
Democrats now hold a 68-54 advantage over Republicans in the House, but it's unclear whether the partisan balance will hold.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyjournal.net ...
>Democrats now hold a 68-54 advantage over Republicans in the House, but it’s unclear whether the partisan balance will hold.
That is a huge lead. This is going to change??
The GOP needs to gain just 8 seats to win the House, and given the shifting dynamics, it’s not that difficult. The MS Dems have been desperately trying to hold off the inevitable realignment for the past 2 decades. AR is about to flip, too, especially now that the toxic Huckster (who was preventing that from happening) is gone from the Governorship.
Now this is the proper way to switch parties.Do it so the people can vote on your new affiliation;swiching after the election is dishonest.
I do hope that Republicans win a majority. Will Governor Barbour he stumping for the hopefuls?
Possibly, although there’s a ton of candidates. Everything is up this year, every legislative seat and statewide. The Democrats aren’t even fielding candidates for some offices (such as Lt Governor, which is an open race). I expect the Dems will do all they can to hold on to their last remaining office, that of Attorney General (and that one is probably only second in importance to Governor, and taking it is paramount for us). We haven’t held that office since Reconstruction. I expect that once we get past the legislative barrier, you’ll probably see a number of switches (at least of the White Dems). As I predicted, aside from a handful of urban liberal Whites, virtually every officeholding White Democrat in the Deep South will be gone before the end of this decade, if not sooner. Amazing to realize that 3-4 decades ago they made up almost 100% of those legislatures.
No rats for LT Gov, Auditor, or Sec of State. WOW. The Reform party is the only opposition for those races, didn’t know they still ran candidates. They have a full statewide slate and the dems don’t! Possibly you are allowed to fill the nominations later if no one files to run.
Every deep Southern state has seen numerous switches once the GOP takes over or comes very close. MS shouldn’t be an exception.
Interestingly, in the TN House, with our now commanding 2-to-1 GOP majority, not a single member has switched parties since the 2010 election. The last “switch” was when we kicked that backstabbing Judas ex-Speaker out of the party, and he was reelected as an Independent. There are some rural, center-right Dems, but they have yet to jump. They probably figure as long as they stay, they can keep getting reelected, and it keeps a tenuous balance of the party completely becoming a Black and Urban White Socialist one. Of course, with redistricting, we might sack some of those rural ones. Not much need to protect them, and once the Dems are freed of those “moderates”, they can be unencumbered to be full-blown ultraleft moonbat (and racist).
The border/peripheral states seem to be immune.
I don’t remember hearing about any switches in NC either. Maybe I’ve forgotten.
There was a mess of switches when the GOP won the NC House in 1994, and that was thought to insulate the party, yet by 1998, they lost it. I was thinking the last Dem to GOP party switch by voluntary means in TN was a West TN State Senator who was utterly disgusted by the Dems handling of the seating of Auntie Ophelia Ford after her “win” by voter fraud. He lost by an extremely narrow margin in ‘06 (and in a rematch in ‘10).
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