Posted on 02/10/2003 5:43:35 AM PST by JohnnyZ
Rep. John Read of Gautier, a Democrat since first winning election in 1992, has qualified to run as a Republican. He will be seeking a fourth term.
Read is the fifth lawmaker to switch to the GOP since December, when Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck left the Democrats.
Read said he changed parties to better represent his Jackson County district, which is overwhelmingly Republican. He said the decision won't affect the way he votes in the House.
"I've always been a conservative," he said. "A lot of people have always assumed that I was a Republican."
There are now 82 Democrats, 37 Republicans and three independents in the House.
(Excerpt) Read more at sunherald.com ...
Okay, Who's Next?
Could this be considered a backlash to the way Lott was railroaded out of his leadership position? The State dems are obviously reading the tea leaves.
He sure as heck wasn't a Rockefeller Republican!!!
Maybe he thought he was part of the old Democrat party, like the JFK party. Lower taxes, and "...what you can do for your country, not what freebies your country can hand out to you", or something like that. LOL.
Anyway, the "new Marxist left" is obviously anti-American and people are noticing. It's a good thing.
Delegate switches parties to retain Finance post
Friday December 27, 2002
By Fanny Seiler
STAFF WRITER
A 10-year veteran in the House of Delegates has switched from Republican to Democrat after the minority leader recommended that he be taken off the Finance Committee.
Delegate Douglas Stalnaker, a resident of Weston, changed his registration Monday, and Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, reappointed him to the Finance Committee as a Democrat.
Before he changed parties, the GOP had 32 delegates in the House, enough to gain a seat - from seven to eight - on the Finance Committee. When Stalnaker joined the Democratic ranks, the Republican Party lost the extra seat on the committee.
Stalnaker said Thursday the main reason he switched was because Minority Leader Charles Truman IV, R-Morgan, recommended to Kiss that Stalnaker be moved from Finance to the Committee on Government Organization. The minority leader recommends Republican delegates for committees, and Kiss generally accepts the recommendations when the speaker makes his committee assignments.
"This is my decision," Stalnaker said. "I felt it was the best thing for my district to remain there. I worked too hard for my district to let that happen."
Not one Democrat told him to switch, Stalnaker said. He talked with Kiss last Friday, and again Saturday. Stalnaker said the speaker wanted him to think about it to make sure that’s what he wanted to do. He called Kiss on Monday and said he had changed his registration
"He put me back on Finance," Stalnaker said. "It’s the toughest thing I ever had to do."
"Obviously, I’m disappointed to lose a member," Trump said. It’s always difficult to make recommendations, he said. There are more delegates interested in Finance and Judiciary, he said, than the other major committees, Education and Government Organization.
Trump said he has to consider all the relative factors such as seniority, an individual’s area of expertise, special training and geography. He also said he asked his members for their committee preferences.
The minority leader recommended that all the Republican Finance Committee members, except Stalnaker, be reassigned to Finance, plus Delegates Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, and Larry Border, R-Wood, who had previously served on the committee. The GOP had a vacancy on Finance since Monongalia County Delegate Sheirl Fletcher didn’t seek re-election.
Some of the more conservative Republicans reportedly had complained that Stalnaker, a moderate, didn’t toe the party line, and shouldn’t be put back on the Finance Committee when the 76th Legislature convenes in January.
With new Republican members coming to the House, Stalnaker said Trump told him it was a time for change. The 75th Legislature had 25 Republican delegates.
Stalnaker acknowledged that some Republicans feel if "you don’t vote with them 100 percent of the time, they think you’re an outcast. I’m not going to vote with anyone 100 percent of the time."
Stalnaker said he had told Kiss he wouldn’t vote all the time with the speaker.
Kiss doesn’t expect him to either. "I don’t think Doug Stalnaker is going to change one bit. He’s been an outstanding delegate. I think the world of Doug. I look forward to working with him," the speaker said.
Kiss said he didn’t think anyone voted 100 percent of the time with one party or the other. He said sometimes he feels like the odd man out himself, referring to the time that members of his own party kept him off the state Supreme Court.
"I thought he’d done a good job on Finance, Kiss said. "It was a decision he had to make."
Trump also said Stalnaker had to decide where he was comfortable in serving.
Stalnaker was elected to his first two-year term in 1994 and has served since. He is a former president of the Lewis County Commission and formerly was a member of the Lewis County Republican Executive Committee.
Stalnaker said the people in his district vote for the person, and the county and circuit clerks currently are Republicans while the assessor and sheriff are Democrats. One county commissioner is a Republican and one magistrate is a Republican while the other magistrate is a Democrat.
He fully expects Republican state chairman Kris Warner to target him, but Stalnaker said he and Warner had their differences in the past.
Warner couldn’t be reached, but GOP executive director Gary Abernathy said, "We’ll keep working with loyal Republicans." He said he understands Stalnaker formerly was a Democrat before he ran for county commission.
In four to six years, Abernathy predicted Stalnaker would be a member of the minority party again when Republicans gain control of the House of Delegates. Warner’s goal is to have the GOP in the majority by 2008, if not before.
"I think the day will come when the Republican Party will be the majority party," echoed Trump.
But Trump said the state has serious challenges, and he is looking forward to working with Republicans and Democrats and the governor in the upcoming legislative session to find answers to West Virginia’s problems.
It is hard to explain the cultural attachment to the RAT party in the rural South until you have lived there. There is something ingrained and inertial about being a Rat because pappy and grandpappy were rats. It takes the gradual realization that the party has left you or you can no longer ignore or stomach certain things before people change their party label to relfect their basic conservative philosophy.
Ten-plus years ago, after leaving the Midwest, I worked for an elected official in the rural South. This man was one of the most conservative people that I have met, yet he was still a Democrat.
Then, another silly question popped into my mind, How long will he be a republican, or will he be a rino like McAinal on a local level?!
*BUMP*
Mornin', Gramps!
Even though there are way more dims than Republicans, MS is a conservative state. That's because even most dims are conservative. Former Rep. Sonny Montgomery was as conservative as they come, yet he was a life-long dim. Read won't pull a "McAinal", and there are many more Dinos than Rinos in the state. It's not like CA or OR...
Some of them NEVER figure it out!!
There are still a few potential switchers outstanding, and the filing deadline is March 1st. The longer these folks hold out before filing, the greater the chance that they're planning to switch, I think. The folks still pending: Sen's Travis Little and Tommy Dickerson, Reps Mike Eakes and Jim Barnett.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.