Free Republic

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...