Posted on 11/19/2015 5:10:30 PM PST by SMGFan
A Democrat in the Kentucky House of Representatives said on Thursday he was joining the Republicans, a move that could spell trouble for Democratic hopes of keeping their grip on the last legislative chamber they control in the U.S. South.
State Representative Denny Butler's decision to run for re-election as a Republican means Democrats hold just a 53-47 edge in the state House. His announcement came just two weeks after the Democrats lost the Kentucky governor's race for only the second time since 1971.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Gee, we vote those RINOs out, the they go and find a replacement. Can’t win.
A bellwether for 2016?
I predict there will be other defections by February in the Kentucky legislature. They see the handwriting now that there is a Republican governor and the coal country Democrats are looking for cover.
another southern dem defects to the gop. the ky dem is becoming a lousiville party.
I always wondered how a state like Kentucky could be a solidly Rat state for so many years. I always thought of it as a more conservative leaning state but I guess I would be wrong huh?
Usually there have been party switches in Southern legislative chambers in the period directly before the GOP has finally won control of them, members can smell the change coming. So yes, I’d say, and hope.
It doesn’t matter how many Republicans are elected so long as they continue to vote like Democrats.
interestingly party switchers don’t last long. when they try to run for higher office, they lose in primary or general. examples include david beasly of sc, gene taylor of ms, and mike bowers of ga. if the party switchers stay in their current office, they do fine. examples include strom thurmond, ralph hall, and billy tauzin.
KY is a border state, not the South, Reuters.
Excluding the switch of Mr. Butler, there are 8 House seats won by the KY Dems by less than 10% and including Mr. Denny, there was a whopping 25 seats held by the Dems that went uncontested.
It’s shocking that KY Dems have managed to last as long as they have holding the House. The Senate flipped to the GOP way back in 1999 and it was expected the House would follow suit (by 2004) in the election after Dr. Fletcher became Governor. They reached a high of 43 (out of 100) in the ‘04 elections, but when the Dems $hithammered Fletcher and concocted those charges (he dared to hire GOP gov’t workers in an all-Dem regime !) and ran him out of office, that by 2010, the GOP plummeted to just 34 seats (just 1/3rd of the body).
The Dems and Gov. Beshear also attempted to cull the GOP Senate majority to that the Dems came within 2 seats of getting back control at the same time. It’s since increased from 20R-17D-1I up to 27R-11D as of a special election this year. Of the 11 seats the Dems hold, 7 (Dists. 4, 7, 10, 18, 29, 31 & 37) either voted GOP at the Presidential level or had recent GOP occupants. Meaning that like TN, only 4 out of 38 seats should be Dem held: 13 (Urban Lexington) 19, 33 & 35 (Louisville).
As it stands, the GOP should probably hold at least 70 out of the 100 House seats in the state (once they get control of redistricting) and all that will be left of the Dem caucus will be a rump of urban White leftists from the “trendy/hipster” districts and the adjacent poor Black ghettoes with the remaining White Union Coal Country members (many with very socially Conservative constituents that have handily voted against the national Dems in the past 2 decades) will drift back to the GOP (which many were prior to unionization in the 1920s/30s).
Precisely what has happened here in TN (minus the Coal Country aspect), where Nashville and Memphis make up 100% of the entire Democrat Senate caucus and 18 out of the 26 remaining House members (and of those 26, 9 of those should be GOP-held).
dems as long as they did in the south thru clever gerrymandering. this allowed the dems to develop a farm team. thanks to the wave years of ‘14 and ‘1Θ, we defeated their rising stars. the yellow dog machine is busted in the south. moral of the story: win as many seats in a wave year.
Also, there are still a great many people in Kentucky who are registered Democrats because their daddies were Democrats, and their grandpappies were Democrats...etc.
Hell, I took a job working for a US Senator in Washington DC — you’d think my grandparents would be proud. Nope. Didn’t speak to me for 4 years and all because I was working for a Republican.
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