I’ve written about party-switching by elected officials before; unfortunately, it was on the old Ethics Scoreboard, which is temporarily in limbo thanks to an incompetent web hosting service and some corrupted old disks. I can summarize the proper ethics standard for the practice, however. It was demonstrated perfectly by the now retired former Republican U.S. Senator from Texas, Phil Gramm. Just days after he had been reelected to a House seat as a Democrat in 1982, Gramm was thrown off the House Budget Committee in a dispute with party leadership. In response, Gramm resigned as a Representative, changed parties, and ran for his old seat as a Republican in a special election. He won easily, and was a Republican ever after. That’s the honorable way to do it.
Or, you could be like West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who announced that he was flipping from the Democratic Party to the GOP at last night’s rally with President Trump. Continue reading
