Posted on 09/16/2003 7:39:29 AM PDT by jern
In a move that's likely to test the forgiveness of his district's voters, state Rep. Mike Decker of Walkertown switched parties again yesterday, rejoining the Republican Party as the 2004 election approaches in his heavily Republican district.
Decker's move creates a situation in which Republicans again hold the 61-59 advantage that they had in the N.C. House after the 2002 election. Yet they must share control of the chamber with Democrats because of the 60-60 split that Decker's first party switch created in January.
'I did not switch parties for any other reason than to bring about the change in the Republican leadership. The leadership had lied to me on many occasions,' Decker said after he changed his registration to Republican yesterday at the Forsyth County Board of Elections
The initial switch by Decker, a conservative, led to the first-ever election of co-speakers, with Jim Black, a Democrat, and Richard Morgan, a Republican, sharing the gavel.
Republicans, including Bill Cobey, the chairman of the state GOP at the time, condemned Decker for taking away the party's majority in the House.
'I was always going to change back,' Decker said yesterday. 'I think the vehemence and the lies that the Republican Party - specifically Bill Cobey - told about me made me angry and kept me from coming back as quickly as I had thought of doing.'
Decker said that he will continue to support the co-speakership of Morgan and Black, and he said he hasn't decided yet whether he will run for re-election next year.
If he does, the question is how much the voters in his strongly Republican district will hold his party-switching against him.
'Michael Decker is a lot like an old male bird dog I once owned,' said Ferrell Blount, the chairman of the N.C. Republican Party. 'You never knew when he was going to leave the yard, and you never knew when he was going to come back home.'
John Davis, the executive director of N.C. FREE, a business-backed group in Raleigh that tracks legislative election trends, thinks that voters in the 94th House District will resent Decker's moves and that Decker is likely to lose in a Republican primary.
'It just seems to me that what Michael Decker did to Republicans in his district was far more than just switching to the Democratic Party,' he said. 'What he did was take away the power of the Republican Party to exercise power over the agenda of this state by controlling one of the two (legislative) chambers.
'Politically, this is the equivalent of changing religions - you just don't do it and expect your following to continue their loyalty to you,' Davis said.
Bill Miller, the chairman of the Forsyth GOP and a resident of Decker's district, agreed. He noted that Walkertown Mayor Tom Southern has announced that he will run for Decker's seat, and others are considering it.
'It borders on treason.... It was treason to the people who elected him, who supported him, who gave him money, who gave him work,' said Miller, who said that he even represented Decker at one campaign debate.
Charona Remillard, the secretary of the Forsyth Republican Party and a member of Decker's church, said she hopes that Decker receives 'the biggest backlash known to man.'
'Whoever runs against him is going to have a lot of firepower,' Remillard said.
'You can forgive him. But you can't believe anything he says anymore. That's the central issue - I mean, he voted for things this session that he'd never voted for before.'
Decker has been elected to the House 10 times. In a district in which Democrats didn't even field a candidate last year, he won 85 percent of the vote against a lone Libertarian candidate in 2002.
'If the people in his district want a good representative who will get things done, they'll vote for Mike Decker again,' said Black, the Democratic co-speaker.
'I don't feel bad toward him,' Black said. 'He's doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to represent his district.'
Morgan, the Republican co-speaker, said that little will change in the House even though Republicans now have a majority again.
'Mike has probably realized that it would be difficult for him to get re-elected unless he were a Republican,' Morgan said.
'We're back where we started as far as the numbers go, but I don't think it makes any difference as far as the operations of the North Carolina House or anything else,' he said.
'Why break something that's working? We've gotten rid of gridlock and bickering, and we're trying to do some good things for the state.'
And Black said that a co-speaker arrangement where Democrats and Republicans share power is likely to continue in the House.
'I would say even in the future if the numbers are not equal, there's a good chance of a co-speakership or shared power. I think we've shown it can work,' he said.
• David Rice can be reached in Raleigh at (919) 833-9056 or at drice@wsjournal.com
He's gotta go!!!
The initial switch by Decker, a conservative,
Is this an example of the "do it my way NOW or I'll destroy the world" attitude of too many Conservatives?
And I won't be alone.
Windom
'so I just passed the lies on to my constituents.'
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