Redstate

The scars of the Civil War continue to be erased. This time by a party switcher.

Who has unfortunately chosen to file as a Democrat once again. Although maybe he'll figure out his ideal party before the Republicans take the Mississippi House (which will undoubtedly happen very soon).

And the Republicans will definately take both houses in Louisiana. Hopefully they'll follow that up by bringing closed party primaries back to state elections, dooming the Democrats even more by empowering the liberal fringe that controls their party. Which leads to nominating fringe liberals who'll lose to mainstream Republicans.

Even though the GOP won control of the state Senate in 2004, a Democrat got elected to the dual role of leader of the Senate and Lieutenant Governor. Lt. Governor Wilder had held this position since the early 1970's, and he had kept it so long by giving Republicans equal numbers of committee chairs. However, this year the deal broke down, Republicans held ranks, and one Democrat (the same senator who challenged Ford for the Dem nomination for US Senate) voted for Republican leader Ron Ramsey. So this year the GOP officially took over the state Senate and the Lieutenant Governorship for the first time since Reconstruction even though they got a majority in 2004.

Thanks to the constitutional structure of the state Senate and the office of Lt. Gov., the GOP has more power than their numbers have indicated.

Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck switched to the Republican Party in Dec. 2002 and won re-election in 2003. She has the sole power to appoint not only Senate committee chairmen, but she gets to decide the members of those committees. So, since 2004 there have been some GOP chairmen even though they started with 24 seats to the Dems 28.

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http://www.patrickcarver.net/blog