Free Republic

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) - Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb announced in a news conference Wednesday morning that she will resign her position in August. She is the only Democrat on the Alabama Supreme Court. "After tremendous amount of time and prayer and God's guidance to what is in the best interest of the Alabama Court System," Cobb said, " I have decided to step down." She cited the partisan way judges are selected and funding problems in her announcement. [Read Justice Cobb's official statement (.pdf)] With Cobb's departure, there will be only one statewide level Democrat holding...

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Houma area state senator Monday became the Louisiana Legislature's newest party switcher to the Republicans. Sen. Norby Chabert, a first-term senator from Little Caillou, announced that he has moved from the Democratic Party to the GOP. The member of a longtime Democratic political family, Chabert holds the Senate seat once held by his father Leonard and brother Marty. He's the fourth Democrat in the Senate to switch parties in the last five months, as the fall elections near and the state continues a trend to the right. Chabert said the national Democratic Party and President...

BATON ROUGE, La. — A state lawmaker from central Louisiana has become the latest member of the Louisiana House to leave the Democratic Party for the GOP. Rep. Billy Chandler, of Dry Prong, announced his party switch Friday, adding another Republican to the House, which recently became a majority GOP chamber. Chandler says he's joined the Republican Party because the philosophy more closely matches his views and those of his constituents. He was elected in 2006 to the district representing parts of Grant, LaSalle, Rapides, and Winn parishes. The House has 53 Republicans, 46 Democrats, four independents and two vacancies....

The latest refugee is State Rep. Bubba Chaney of Rayville, who made his switch official today. With Chaney’s move, there are now 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats and four independents in the House, with one seat open (the one formerly held by Democrat-turned Republican Fred Mills, who just won a special election for the Senate) and set for a special election next month. Chaney, who is serving his first term in the Louisiana Legislature, changed his party affiliation at the Richland Parish Courthouse late Monday afternoon. “I just didn’t feel that my philosophy as a traditional conservative Blue Dog Democrat has...

JACKSON, Miss. — Two Mississippi lawmakers switched from Democrat to Republican on Thursday but said the new party affiliation won't change the way they vote because they've already been siding with the GOP on many issues. Reps. Margaret Rogers of New Albany and Russ Nowell of Louisville announced their switch Thursday during a news conference at the state Republican Party headquarters in Jackson. With the changes, there are now 53 Republicans and 68 Democrats in the state House of Representatives, with one vacant seat.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Three elected Mississippi Democrats announced Tuesday they are switching to the Republican Party, a move Republicans described as a victory for the GOP and a rebuke of Democratic Party ideology. State Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, state Rep. Bobby Shows and Simpson County Superintendent of Education Joe Welch announced the changes in their party affiliation during a news conference Tuesday at Mississippi Republican Party headquarters in Jackson. The party switches don't shift the balance of power in either house of the state Legislature, but GOP officials said it's part of continuing trend in Mississippi and beyond. At least...

AUSTIN -- Two Democrats in the Texas House announced Tuesday they are switching to the Republican Party in move that gives the GOP a supermajority in the chamber. Rep. Aaron Pena of Edinburg appeared at a news conference with Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker Joe Straus to proclaim his move to the GOP along with fellow Democrat Allan Ritter of Nederland in Southeast Texas. Ritter had already indicated his intentions to shift his party affiliation. The new Republican House members will give the GOP 101 seats in the lower chamber in the 2011 Legislature, a number that will allow...

Two African-American Democrats on Thursday announced that they were joining the Republican Party. Hall County Commissioner Ashley Bell and former state executive committee member Andre Walker said the Democratic Party had grown too liberal and they are finding a new home with the Republicans.

For Democrats in the South, the most ominous part of a disastrous year may not be what happened on Election Day but what has happened in the weeks since. After suffering a historic rout — in which nearly every white Deep South Democrat in the U.S. House was defeated and Republicans took over or gained seats in legislatures across the region — the party’s ranks in Dixie have thinned even further. In Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama, Democratic state legislators have become Republicans, concluding that there is no future in the party that once dominated the so-called Solid South. That the...

GULFPORT — First it was Congress and next it will be the state Legislature, Brad White, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, said Wednesday after Tuesday’s GOP sweep in midterm U.S. House races. “We’ve been working hard on candidate recruitment for state legislative races next year,” White said. “Politics is a team sport, and what team you’re on matters. That’s my intention — to take over the Legislature.” Though Mississippi, like most of the Deep South, has become firmly a “red state” in presidential elections and Republicans now hold a majority of statewide and congressional offices, its Democratic roots still...

Georgia Republicans on Tuesday finished the job they started in 2002: consolidating control of state government by sweeping every major statewide office. For the first time since Reconstruction the state is poised to have no statewide-elected Democrats. The huge night for state Republicans follows a GOP wave that swept across the country and tilted the U.S. House of Representatives into GOP control and left Democrats with a narrow margin in the U.S. Senate. With most of the votes in Georgia counted Tuesday night, the Republicans held leads in races for U.S. senator, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, insurance commissioner, secretary...

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi House member has switched from Democrat to Republican. The Clarion-Ledger reports that Rep. Scott Bounds announced his decision during a news conference Monday at Republican Party Headquarters in Jackson. Bounds noted his "conservative philosophical and policy beliefs" as the reason for his change. With Bounds, there will be 50 Republicans in the House, and the chamber will have 72 Democrats. Bounds is from Philadelphia and has been in the Legislature since 2004.

The left is quite annoyed that myself and others dare link the racist, segregationist past in this country to Democrats, at that flies in the face of everything they claim to champion, when it comes to civil rights, racial tolerance, etc. The Democrats' own website, to this day, attempts to take fraudulently credit for the civil rights movement and legislation, and when called on it, the recitation is the same: "we've grown" and "don't forget about the Dixiecrats". Defensive liberals claim the Dixiecrats, as a whole, defected from the Democrat Party when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of...

uh-oh another major Dem retirement? RT @blanche4senate Stay tuned for an important campaign announcement tomorrow morning. - ed henry CNN VIA TWITTER Blanche Lincoln's site says announcement coming in morning...

Arkansas Rep. Marion Berry is expected to announce his retirement tomorrow morning, according to three sources briefed on the decision. Berry will become the sixth Democrat in a competitive seat to leave in the last two months but the first to announce his retirement since the party's special election loss in Massachusetts last Tuesday. "The message coming out of the Massachusetts special election is clear: No Democrat is safe," said National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Ken Spain. Berry, first elected in 1996, had been noncommittal about his re-election bid for months although, privately, his allies insisted he was planning...

WASHINGTON -- Like the rest of the Democratic Party, Georgia's congressional Democrats are feeling shock waves from the stunning Republican win in Massachusetts. Some Democratic U.S. House members called the upset by Senator-elect Scott Brown a sign that they need to change their campaign strategies and how they do their jobs. At least one, U.S. Rep. David Scott of Atlanta, bucked his party's leadership by suggesting it may be time for Democrats to drop their plans for health care to focus more on the economy. "This is a clarion call for us to focus like a laser on the economy,"...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Democratic U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder of Arkansas says he won't seek re-election to an eighth term. The 62-year-old says he wants to spend more time with his wife and four young children, including a set of year-old triplets. Snyder has held the Arkansas 2nd District seat since 1997. His record in the House includes standing against proposed federal bans on same-sex marriage and late-term abortions. He also voted for health care reform, which was thought to have weakened him this year.

Here, Arkansas: Here’s your political “holy shit” moment of the day—Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder of the Second Congressional District announces he’ll retire. Full statement at jump. Republican Tim Griffin has been making a spirited run to challenge Snyder on the GOP side, facing Scott Wallace and David Meeks in the Republican primary. Soooo…who will jump in on the Democratic side? ***snip *** U.S. Representative Vic Snyder: “2010 will be a robust election year during which great forces collide to set the direction for our country for another two years. Over the last several weeks Betsy and I have had discussions...

ANDALUSIA, Ala. — Among the men who gather every morning at 6 o’clock at the Church’s Chicken here on Three Notch Street, there is general agreement that the Obama administration is doing a very bad job of running the country. And the stakes are as high, as one coffee drinker put it, as the survival of the country’s culture, economy and way of life. Yet this group is represented in the House by a Democrat, Bobby Bright. And they are actually fond of him. For now. “I like Bobby,” said Glenn Cook, 72, a retired electrical engineer. “I think he’s...

Usually one does not see Congressmen or Senators flipping parties to join the minority. However, Politico’s Josh Kraushaar has a scoop that Blue Dog Democrat Parker Griffith of Alabama, a freshman in Congress, has seen enough of Nancy Pelosi’s leadership. He will join Republicans in a move that has far more symbolic than substantive impact — for now: POLITICO has learned that Rep. Parker Griffith, a freshman Democrat from Alabama, will announce today that he’s switching parties to become a Republican. According to a senior GOP aide familiar with the decision, the announcement will take place in this afternoon in...

Please pay attention Roger Wicker and Greg Davis There are many myths in southern culture. One of the latest is the myth of the modern day, "conservative" Mississippi Democrat. Currently, Senator Roger Wicker (R) and Greg Davis are locked into real battles with former Governor Ronnie Musgrove (D) and Rep. Travis Childers (D), respectively, for federal contests. Let's start this conversation with two basic facts. First, Mississippi is overwhelmingly conservative. That's a given. To even have a prayer (pardon the pun), a Democrat for statewide office must be conservative on God, guns and abortion. That's just a fact. A "true...

There's this political consultant for the Democrats named David Saunders, who goes by "Mudcat", and he's full of, well, he's full of a lot of stuff, but he's no doubt an interviewer's dream because he's full of earthy local-color quotes. He's profiled by one of the Weekly Standard's best writers, Matt Labash, and drops an interesting bit of strategery: Mudcat, who describes himself as "an old-timey Democrat: pro-gun, pro-God, pro fiscal conservatism," is tired of teaching remedial Mudcat Math to deaf ears in his own party. It can be distilled as The Twofer Strategy: If you get a rural white...

Democratic state Senator Tom Butler will announce that he is changing parties and run for the state’s 5th Congressional District seat as a Republican, according to two sources close to the situation. Sen. Butler of Madison is one of the “dissident Democrats” who caucuses with Senate Republicans in a minority coalition. Many believed that Butler’s differences with Senate Democrats were more personal than political. State Sen. E. B. McClain (D - Midfield) once described Butler’s relationship with the party as wounded. (Another Senate insider described it to the Parlor in much the same way. See also here.) Democrats had hoped...

Harrison County Democrats held a caucus on Saturday, and nobody showed up. The good weather, said party chairman Andrew "FoFo" Gilich, was partly to blame. "It was a nice day. It was probably hard to break away," he said, referring to family activities. The caucus is held every four years, he said, and has two goals: to elect delegates for the county's Executive Committee, which oversees elections for a four year term, and to elect county delegates for conventions. Local delegates help select national delegates for the Democratic National Convention, set for August in Denver.

JACKSON (AP) — Sen. Nolan Mettetal, whose win in the Democratic Primary was disputed last year, said Wednesday he's leaving the party to become a Republican. "Switching is not the proper terminology. I'm just joining a party. The (Democratic) Party abandoned me," said Mettetal of Sardis, who has served in the Senate since 1996. Before Mettetal's switch, there were 28 Democrats and 24 Republicans in the Mississippi Senate. The balance is now 27-25. Mettetal said Wednesday that he felt the Democratic Party didn't support him in last year's election. He represents District 10, which covers Panola and Tate counties. Mettetal...

Elba's Jimmy Holley expected to announce decision Jan. 10 MONTGOMERY - A veteran Democratic senator will switch to the Republican Party, but his move won't affect the Democrats' stranglehold on the Alabama Senate. Sen. Jimmy Holley of Elba is expected to announce his decision at a news conference in his hometown on Jan. 10. Neither Holley nor Rep. Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, who is chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, would officially confirm Holley's switch Wednesday. But Hubbard called it "the worst-kept secret in the state." Holley, 63, who has served in the Alabama Legislature for 30 years, joined the GOP...

Democrats angered at the image of country and western as Right-wing “redneck music” are planning a tour of Middle America during the 2008 election campaign by Nashville artists opposed to the Iraq war. An alliance called the Music Row Democrats is poised to re-launch itself early next year in an attempt to seize back country music from the Republican camp and spread their message that President George W. Bush’s party does not care about ordinary people. Slowly but surely, more country singers are performing songs critical of the Bush administration. Merle Haggard, who once sang the anti-hippie anthem “Okie from...

Black South Carolinians are Democrats. But they’re far from liberal. African-Americans in South Carolina have nuanced, sometimes seemingly conflicting opinions that reflect, at times, the state’s conservatism, a groundbreaking Winthrop/ETV poll found. For example, according to the poll: • Two-thirds say they are Democrats, and four in five plan to vote in the state’s January Democratic presidential primary. But almost six in 10 describe their political beliefs as conservative or moderate. • Despite that conservatism, more than half say government “definitely� should ensure every American has a “decent standard of living,� a liberal belief at odds with free-market capitalism. •...

Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn says he is disappointed with the current presidential campaign and is considering a bipartisan or independent run for the White House in 2008. “It’s a possibility, not a probability,” Nunn said in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “My own thinking is, it may be a time for the country to say, ‘Timeout. The two-party system has served us well, historically, but it’s not serving us now.’” The Georgian said he’s distressed by the “fiasco” in Iraq, the out-of-control federal budget, U.S. energy policy, and a presidential campaign that has not dealt straight on with...

A leading liberal blogger has declared political war against centrist Democrats – the latest move in an intensifying show of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Congress by the once-friendly blogosphere. Matt Stoller, who blogs at the well-trafficked OpenLeft.com, has compiled a list of 38 House “Blue Dog” Democrats who have voted with Republicans on key legislation, and called on the activist community to put pressure on them – and perhaps challenge them in primaries – if they fail to shape up. “Some of these members may need to face a primary challenge, and it's useful for potential primary challengers to know...

Georgia state representative from the Atlanta has switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party, bolstering the wide GOP majority in the state House of Representatives. "My strong belief in fiscal responsibility and restraint... is not a good fit within the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives," Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Atlanta, wrote in an entry on his blog Tuesday morning. Rep. Jacobs' move to the Republican Party increases the GOP House majority to 107, and reduces the Democratic minority to 73 members. House Democrats criticized the move as opportunistic.

Biden not worried about Southern Dems 43 minutes ago Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) says he can hold his own in a 2008 presidential primary against Democratic contenders from the South, noting that his home state of Delaware was a "slave state." Biden dismissed the notion that he was a "Northeastern liberal" who would have a poor showing in the South against other likely contenders such as Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee. "Better than anybody else," Biden said, when asked on "Fox News Sunday" to...

JACKSON, Miss. - Former Rep. Gillespie V. “Sonny” Montgomery, who during his 30 years in Congress pushed through a modernized GI Bill that boosted recruiting for the all-volunteer force, died Friday. He was 85. SNIP On Thursday, the House voted to name a national defense authorization bill in his honor. A conservative Democrat, Montgomery represented an east-central Mississippi district in Congress from 1967 to 1997, and for 13 years chaired the House Veterans Affairs Committee. He himself was a 35-year military veteran, serving in the Army in Europe during World War II, then returned to active duty during the Korean...

GALIVANTS FERRY, S.C. - Many species are rare, even threatened, in the swampy marshes along the southeastern coast, and perhaps none is closer to extinction than the "yellow-dog" Democrat of the Old South. For decades, straight-ticket, conservative white voters who displayed unyielding loyalty to the Democratic Party — they said they'd vote for a yellow dog if the Democrats ran one — transformed the South into a party stronghold. The tide began to turn in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Act alienated some lifelong conservative Democrats and Republican President Nixon courted yellow dogs with his "Southern Strategy." Since the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 — Democrats in Georgia and Alabama, borrowing an idea usually advanced by conservative Republicans, are promoting Bible classes in the public schools. Their Republican opponents are in turn denouncing them as "pharisees," a favorite term of liberals for politicians who exploit religion. ...The Democrats who introduced the bills said they hoped to compete with Republicans for conservative Christian voters. "Rather than sitting back on our heels and then being knocked in our face, we are going to respond in a thoughtful way," said Kasim Reed, a Georgia state senator from Atlanta and one of the sponsors of...

MONTGOMERY - Democratic lawmakers are pressing for a uniform Bible literacy class in Alabama's public schools. At a news conference today, the legislators plan to announce they will push in the Legislature early next year a bill that would allow local school boards to offer "Bible literacy" classes as elective high school courses. House Majority Leader Ken Guin, D-Carbon Hill, and Speaker of the House Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, were expected to make the announcement. Opponents say the Democrats' bill sanctions one religion; Republicans say Democrats are stealing their ideas. The course will center on "The Bible and Its Influence," a...

BATON ROUGE, La. The state Republican Party can count three more members among its fold in the Legislature. Representatives Ernest Wooton of Belle Chasse, Dan "Blade" Morrish of Jennings and William Daniel of Baton Rouge have jumped to the G-O-P. Their switches bring the G-O-P membership in the Legislature to 55: 40 members of the 105-member House and 15 members of the 39-member Senate

The South Carolina Democratic Party is in a sorry fix, and it might take decades to repair. Inez Tenenbaum’s decision not to seek re-election in 2006 as state superintendent of education shocked the party, left it gasping for air. Experts stop short of declaring the party dead, but they don’t hold out much hope for recovery any time soon. “The outlook certainly is not bright,” says College of Charleston political scientist Bill Moore. When one looks down the road, things don’t look that promising for the Democrats. They have no reserves. In fact, they have no starting lineup to speak...

The only Democrat to unseat a Republican member of the U.S. Senate in the last two cycles - Mark Pryor of Arkansas - told a gathering of frustrated centrist Democrats a couple of years ago that one of his out-of-state consultants did some research and concluded that Pryor ought to talk about his religious faith in every speech. Pryor said he was wholly comfortable doing that, and pretty much did so. He also ran a television commercial showing his family with bowed heads around the dinner table. He earned 54 percent of the vote while Democrats were getting their clocks...

CANTON - Van Zandt County Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Ronnie Daniell announced that he is switching parties and will run as a Republican in 2006. Daniell ran for office in 2003 on the Democratic ticket. He said his change of heart comes from his disappointment in certain leaders of the Democratic Party. "It's just very simple: I'm a person who believes in trying to be a peacemaker," he said. "With the leadership I've noted in the national and local party, I cannot in good conscience follow that party." Daniell said he has been considering the switch for awhile,...

A seven-year legislative veteran is switching parties, giving Republicans a milestone 100 seats in the House of Representatives. State Rep. Greg Morris, a Vidalia Democrat and entrenched party insider, is set to appear before friends and supporters in his hometown today to announce his defection to the GOP. His decision bolsters the comfort level of the new Republican leadership in the 180-member House, which heads into the 2006 General Assembly session in control of 100 seats, nine more votes than they need to pass most legislation. His defection is significant for Democrats since Morris, 41, was part of former Democratic...

A seven-year legislative veteran has switched parties, giving Republicans 100 House seats and added momentum to the party going into the 2006 governor's race. State Rep. Greg Morris, a Vidalia Democrat and party insider, is set to appear before friends and supporters in his hometown tomorrow to announce his defection to the GOP. His decision bolsters the comfort level of the new Republican leadership, which now heads into the 2006 legislative session with nine more seats than they need to win any vote in the 180-member chamber. His defection is significant for Democrats since Morris was part of former Democratic...

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean urged members of his party to "stand up for what you believe in" at a lightly-attended fundraiser Thursday night, but none of Louisiana's leading Democrats was there for the message - not Gov. Kathleen Blanco or Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, or even the chairman of the state party, Jim Bernhard. Dean afterwards attributed the absences to "schedules," but his selection as DNC chairman earlier this year was opposed by many conservative Democrats, and they continue to express dismay over the Vermont governor's tough words for the party in power. The no-shows underscored the challenge...

N.C. governor polls 'King of the Hill' fans The Associated Press June 26, 2005   6:11 pm RALEIGH, N.C. -- Gov. Mike Easley has turned his affection for Fox TV's animated show, "King of the Hill," into a target group in his polls.Easley, who views the show's main character as a man devoid of party label, asked his pollster several years ago to separate "King of the Hill" viewers in poll results in order to use them as a political barometer."What happens in the show is, the wrestling (with issues) manifests itself in the gray area," Easley said Friday. "He...

COLUMBIA -- When National Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean visits Columbia on Wednesday, South Carolina's top Democratic elected official, Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, won't be there. "I had already, months ago, scheduled to be out of state," she said last week. Florence Mayor Frank Willis, one of two announced Democratic candidates for governor in 2006, also has other plans. Willis said he'll be touring Dillon, Marion and Williamsburg counties. "We're going to start early that morning and finish late that evening," he said. The other Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Aiken Sen. Tommy Moore, couldn't be reached. Winthrop University political science...

If you watch a lot of cable news, by now you've probably heard someone refer to a bloc of voters known as '' 'South Park' conservatives.'' The term comes from the title of a new book by Brian C. Anderson, a conservative pundit who adapted it from the writer Andrew Sullivan, and it refers to the notion that Comedy Central's obscene spoof of life in small-town America, with its hilarious skewering of liberal snobbery, is somehow the perfect crucible for understanding a new breed of brash and irreverent Republican voters. In truth, aside from its title, Anderson's book has very...

Van Zandt County Sheriff Pat Burnett announced Tuesday that he is switching parties. Burnett, formerly a Democrat, has aligned himself with the Republican Party. He said his decision has nothing to do with the people of the Democratic Party, but hinges entirely on platform issues. "I'm committed to doing the right thing," he said. "I thought it was the appropriate time to do it. It's not right before my election so it becomes an issue, it's the issue now." Burnett also said it's no secret that he ran as a Democrat in 2000 because "my mother asked me to." "I...

South Carolina Democrats will be holding their breath next week when their embattled national chairman arrives in town to have a few beers with the grass-roots and raise money for the state party. Please, Howard Dean, don’t say anything that will embarrass us or subject us to ridicule, the party faithful pray. Dean still is smarting from his remark that Republicans are “pretty much a white Christian party.” Several congressional Democrats have called him on the carpet and ordered him to halt his divisive comments. A handful of S.C. Democratic leaders tried to downplay a series of controversial remarks made...

Agriculture Commissioner Lester Spell has switched to the Republican Party almost 10 years in office as a Democrat, saying his work within his department is more in line with the principals of the GOP.

JACKSON, Miss. - Agriculture Commissioner Lester Spell has switched to the Republican Party after nine years in office as a Democrat, saying his work within his department is more in line with the principals of the GOP. Spell announced his decision late Friday in a written release. "I think over the years I have made a lot of changes in my department...increased efficiency and downsizing government," Spell said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This is very much in line with the principals of the Republican Party." Spell, a former mayor of Richland, said the switch to the...