The link’s article indicated he was a REPUBLICAN in 2006 or 2007, became a DEMOCRAT when he ran for State House, now is switching BACK to Republican....
weird.
Not weird actually, quite understandable. He could not have won as a Republican in either the House or Senate seats he ran for. He opted to be a DINO, running and winning as a Dem, but supporting a Conservative agenda. There’s at least one House legislator in my state (TN) that I know of who is about as Conservative as most of the GOP Conservatives, but because he is Black in a heavily Black Dem distrist, he remains a Democrat. Another center-right Black Dem House member from Knoxville (TN) back in the ‘80s switched to the GOP, managed to survive reelection in a low turnout election, but he fell in the following one.
If he’s been voting conservative and even endorsed David Vitter then it sounds like he was only pretending to be a democrat in order to win a rat seat. Democrats do that all the time (hello Mayor Bloomberg).
Back when Illinois had plural voting (each state house district had 3 members and you could pool all 3 of your votes for one candidate so you could elect 1 of 3 members in a district dominated by the other party) you had democrats run as fake Republicans in Chicago, including the first Mayor Daley who was elected as a “Republican” member in 1936.
Whether Guillory always intended to “switch” back or just couldn’t go on with the charade anymore I don’t know.
I salute him for taking up a rat seat as a “rat”, it kind of conflicts with the agenda of growing the party in enemy territory but could be a highly effective tactic to elect conservatives in places where the letter D is the only thing voters look at. Double agents, misdirection, it’s part of war and this is war. Personally though I’d bite my arm off before I’d vote in a rat primary.
I wonder what now, obviously he won’t hold the seat and will be replaced by a real rat. I’m guessing he has his eye on higher office or else he would have continued pretending to be a democrat to stay in the legislature (or he just couldn’t do it anymore, could you pretend to be a democrat? Not everyone is cut out to be a secret agent).
I suppose he could try to hold the seat but I doubt he’d be successful. Worth a shot though if that’s his aim.