Posted at Show Me Progress

In the interest of full disclosure: I am chair of the 31st Senate District Democratic Committee. I have communicated with Chris Benjamin in that capacity and as an individual party member who is pleased that he has joined the Democratic Party.

Chris Benjamin, former Chief of Staff for Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton (r), has announced that he has joined the Democratic Party and will be running for the open senate seat in the 31st District. The seat is currently held by Chris Koster, a Democratic Party candidate for Attorney General. Previous to that, the seat had been held by Harold Caskey (D), one of the legendary legislative "lions" in the Missouri General Assembly. David Pearce (r) has already announced his candidacy for the senate seat.

The 31st Senate District includes Bates, Cass, Johnson, and Vernon counties. Chris Benjamin is a resident of Cass County and currently practices law in Harrisonville.

Benjamin resigned as the speaker's Chief of Staff on December 21, 2007:

Cass County Democrat Missourian

"...Chris was an invaluable Chief of Staff because of his knowledge of the legislative process," Jetton said. "But he was also someone who meant a great deal individually to the majority caucus and to me personally for his advice and friendship..."

With supportive past statements like that it will make it more difficult for the usual republican suspects to disparage Chris Benjamin's abilities and motivation.

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Back in March I pointed to the possibility that North Carolina Republican Congressman Walter Jones, a conservative on most issues other than Iraq, where he has staked out an anti-war position, would leave the GOP and join the Democrats. Well, it hasn't happened yet, but perhaps it may soon given the way Jones' caucus is treating him. The Hill's Jackie Kucinich has the story.

Rep. Walter Jones's (N.C.) position on the Iraq war is likely to keep him out of the Armed Services Committee's Republican leadership despite his seniority, as the panel's ranking member mulls who will succeed former Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) as Readiness subcommittee ranking member, according to sources on both sides of the aisle.

A spokesman for Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) said he has yet to make a decision and is working through the process of naming a successor to Davis, who died Oct. 6 following a two-year battle with breast cancer.

Jones most likely will be passed over for the subcommittee's ranking member position for the second time in the 110th Congress, according to a congressional source familiar with the discussions. The anti-war Republican has been slighted in the past for siding with Democratic leadership on Iraq war resolutions.

[...]

Despite his party's dissatisfaction, Jones has found it easier to get things done for his district by working with Democrats, he said in an April interview with The Hill.

As I noted back in March, Jones has already previously been a member of the Democratic Party, having unsuccessfully run as a Democrat for the congressional seat being vacated by his father, also a Democrat, in 1992, before winning his current seat as a Republican in 1994. Were he to switch parties during this Congress, he would put a seat (North Carolina 3) that is otherwise not really in play for the Democrats (it leans about 15 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections, according to the Cook PVI) on the map.

There is little doubt that he would be among the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus were he to join it (either as a Democrat or a Democratic-leaning independent). To take one example, Jones voted against the expansion of SCHIP earlier this year -- though that can at least in part be chalked up to the fact that he represents a state uniquely hit by the increased tax on cigarettes (given the prominent role the tobacco industry plays in the North Carolina economy). That said, at least according to the 2006 National Journalvote rankings, Jones lines up on the left side of the aisle, voting liberally than 53.5 percent of his colleagues in the second session of the 109th Congress, which is about as good as one could ask for from a district as inherently Republican as North Carolina's third. So I, for one, would be happy to see Jones jump ship from the Republican Party.

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Rumored to be think about running for Governor as a Democrat LA Senator Walter Boasso about an hour ago confirmed he had filed the paper work making him a Democrat.

Here is the story
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/poli tics/4752038.html

He can self fund his race and is rumored to have the backing of many Democrats in the state.  Foster Campbell is also running as a Democrat, Rep Bobby Jindal is the lone Republican in the race.

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Note: Please don't forget to let us know what you think about the MyDD Primary/Caucus Polling Project 2007

Seemingly good news today out of Tennessee as Democrats edge even closer to gaining the trifecta, offering perhaps further indication that the Republican lean of the state is becoming less and less noticeable. Richard Locker has the details for the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

The Republican majority in the Tennessee Senate was short-lived: Sen. Mike Williams of Maynardville declared an independent today and no longer a member of the Republican Caucus.

Williams blamed dissatisfaction over the arrival of what he called "Washington-style partisanship and gridlock" -- which he said he wants no part of -- for the switch.

His move left the makeup of the state Senate at 16 Republicans, 16 Democrats and one independent. That won't have an immediate impact on the organization of the Senate -- Republican Ron Ramsey was elected to a two-year term as the Senate speaker in January -- but it could affect the dynamics of key votes.

The following comes from a release from the Demcoratic Legislative Campaign Committee:

"Mike Williams comes from a bedrock Republican district in East Tennessee ," says Michael Davies, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and a Tennessee native.  "For him to leave the Republican Party shows that they have some serious internal problems."

"Democrats are the mainstream party at the state legislative level, electing locally-rooted candidates who roll up their sleeves and find common-sense solutions to state problems.  Republicans tend to focus on divisive social issues; clearly this focus is chasing the moderates from their Party."

Davies also points to recent party switches of Washington state Rep. Rodney Tom and Oklahoma state Senator Nancy Riley, both of whom cited the influence of the far right to the exclusion of moderates in their decision to leave the Republican Party.

Despite the fact that Tennessee's Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen easily rolled to reelection last fall, garnering 69 percent of the vote, and Democrat Harold Ford came fairly close to winning an open race for Senate in the state, Democrats in the state legislature did not post much of any gains in November, picking up a single seat in the state senate and posting neither gains nor losses in the state house (according to the National Conference of State Legislatures). That said, the results in Tennessee in 2006 were significantly better than in some previous cycles, notably 1994 when Tennessee Democrats lost control of not one but both of their state's Senate seats -- and by margins of 14 and 22 points. And as more Republican legislators defect from their party, both in Tennessee and around the country, more voters will come to realize that the GOP is just not a party deserving of their support and their vote. As I noted about a week ago:

Party switches by politicians, particularly ones popular among their constituents, can foster party changes by their supporters. The South did not become Republican from the 1960s on solely because of shifts in policies by Republican politicians in the region, it shifted, at least in part, because some of the leading Democratic politicians like Strom Thurmond, John Connally and others changed their partisan allegiances from the Democratic Party to the GOP.

Anyway, this coule be a fairly good piece of news for Democrats in Tennessee.

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Following changes in control over a chamber of Congress, it is not uncommon to see a member or many members of the newly-minted minority leaving their party in favor of the new majority caucus. Following the 1994 midterms, for instance, a number of once Democratic Representatives and Senators (Louisiana Rep. Billy Tauzin and Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby are two large names that come to mind) defected from their party. Although there has yet to be a Senator or Congressman who switched his partisan allegiance from the GOP to the Democratic Party since the 2006 midterms, the possibility remains that one or more still will. Writing in the Thursday edition of The Hill, Jackie Kucinich takes a look at the entreaties offered to one GOP Rep. by the Democrats.

[North Carolina Republican Congressman Walter] Jones's position on Iraq has drawn Democrats to him in recent years, and particularly in the last two months, since he was denied a subcommittee chairmanship on the Armed Services Committee.

While declining to identify which of "several" Democrats have approached him about switching parties, Jones said, as he has many times before, that he plans to stick with the GOP for now.

"Obviously there were some Democrats when I was not given the ranking member status of Armed Services [who wanted] to chat with me," he said, noting that Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) has said publicly that his party would support a swap.

"I [would] welcome him in the Democratic Caucus," Taylor told CongressDaily in January.

"You know it's my political nature to be ... I'm guided by my faith. Quite frankly, I'm strong pro-life," Jones said to explain his allegiance, noting that he didn't believe the Democratic leadership was in line with him on such social issues. "I just take each day as it comes; I certainly think about where I will be a year or two, three years from now, but that's God's plan, not mine ... I think at the present time, because of the pro- life issue primarily, I am where I need to be.

"But I am an independent. There are issues I vote with my party on; there are issues I don't," he said.

Jones is no stranger to the Democratic Party. His father, Walter B. Jones Sr. represented a similar portion of North Carolina for more than 25 years -- as a Democrat -- and when the younger Jones ran to succeed his father in 1992 he did so, unsuccessfully, as a Democrat. Two years later, Jones ran as a Republican and won, and has since maintained that same party allegiance in the House.

But at the same time, Jones is not the most partisan member of his caucus -- not by a long shot. While Jones' standing as one of the leading proponents of bringing an end to the Iraq War from either party has set him apart from most of his fellow Republicans, on a whole range of other issues he voted more like a centrist/conservative Southern Democrat than a traditional Republican. According to 2006 vote rankings from National Journal, Jones tended to vote more liberally than 53.5 percent of his colleagues in the House across all issues (57 percent on economic and foreign policy, 45 percent on social policy), ranking him more liberal than 10 Democrats and all but two Republicans. Similarly, CQ found that on party line votes during over the course of 2006 Jones was the third most likely Republican and eighth most likely member of the House to defect from his party's caucus, doing so about 36 percent of the time.

Now there is certainly credence to the notion that the political cover given to a political party by having a member of the opposing member on its side, thus giving it "bipartisan support", is more beneficial than the addition of one more member, particularly when that party's majority in a chamber is not so small as to be affected by a party switch in the other direction or a sudden retirement. That said, in this particular case House Democrats would well served by adding Jones to their ranks. The district Jones represents, North Carolina's third, leans about 15 points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections, according to the Cook Political Report's PVI, and as such is not likely to swing Democratic any time soon in the absence of a party switch by Jones. What's more, Jones is established enough in his district that he would likely be able to hold on to his seat even if challenged by the Republicans following a party switch.

It is worth reiterating that Jones not in line with the Democratic Party on every issue, most notably the issue of choice, and that, what's more, he would be one of the more conservative members of the party caucus in the House. That said, if you want to let Jones know that you would like to see him join the Democratic Party -- particularly if you are a constituent of his, but even if you're not -- send him an email through this form or give him a call (his official number is available here, his campaign number here).

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