September 20, 2007

England Sends Shock Waves through State
Political Circles with News on Party Switch

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Ten Texas legislators who were initially elected as Democrats have switched to the GOP and represented their constituents as Republicans in subsequent regular sessions in the past 60 years. Now State Rep. Kirk England of Grand Prairie hopes to become the first state lawmaker in modern history to win re-election after shelving his Republican credentials and becoming a Democrat.

The news broke late Wednesday that England plans to announce at a press conference Thursday morning that he's shifting his allegiance to the Democrats after being elected as a Republican in a special election almost two years ago and winning again with an R by his name in last year's general election.

England - the son of a Republican who's been the mayor of Grand Prairie for the past 15 years - said in a statement that he'd decided to jump ship after coming to the conclusion during his time in Austin that the GOP leadership has "no tolerance for the values and priorities" of the people he represents in House District 106.

England's decision left Republicans stunned and sparked rejoicing among Democrats who'd planned to target the seat he represents in Grand Prairie and south Irving in next year's election. Democrats saw the party switch as both a repudiation of Speaker Tom Craddick and the GOP House leadership and a foreshadowing of more gains to come in 2008 amid a backlash against Republicans as a result of the war in Iraq and other woes on the national level.

"Clearly, Kirk England would be the favorite as a Republican or a Democrat," Matt Angle, a former Martin Frost aide who runs the Lone Star Project, said in reference to the HD 106 race in 2008. "His decision to formally break from Tom Craddick and the Republican leaders in Austin shows that he has the courage to do what is best for the people in his District."

While England sided with Democrats on more votes with discernible party lines than most if not all of his Republican colleagues during the session this year, he voted with Craddick supporters on a key test vote during the speaker's election in January and appeared to still be in the incumbent's corner during a mutiny led by several influential GOP members before the session ended in late May. But England's statement on the party switch does seem to suggest that he won't be a Craddick supporter - if he's re-elected to the House as a Democrat - in the speaker's bid for a fourth term in the face of bipartisan opposition when lawmakers convene for the next regular session in 2009.

Craddick lost another key supporter Wednesday when Republican State Rep. Dianne Delisi of Temple confirmed that she won't be on the ballot for re-election in 2008. Delisi's impending retirement and the apparent loss of England as a vote in the speaker's race more than offset the news a day earlier that State Rep. Fred Hill - a Richardson Republican who'd dropped his support for Craddick near the end of the session - would not be a candidate for re-election next year.

England's conversion leaves the GOP with 79 seats in the lower chamber compared to 70 for the Democrats. Democratic Party leaders and operatives think they have a chance to pick up another seat in a November 6 special election for the Fort Worth-area House post that's been open since Republican Anna Mowery resigned in late August.

A victory in the special election would give Republicans an eight-seat advantage just four years after holding 26 seats more than Democrats when they'd claimed their first House majority in more than 130 years in the 2002 elections. Six Republicans and one Democrat are competing in the special HD 97 election. The race's lone Democrat - Fort Worth attorney Dan Barrett - captured 41 percent of the vote in a losing race against Mowery last year.

England won the HD 106 after Republican Ray Allen's early resignation triggered a special election in February 2006. After winning 53 percent of the special election vote in a duel with Democrat Katy Hubener, England won a rematch in November by a mere 235 votes. While some Republican House members such as State Rep. Warren Chisum, the powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee, had complained about the moderate voting record that England compiled this year, no one from either party so far had announced plans to challenge his bid for re-election to a second full term.

While England presumably could have expected significant opposition from Democrats if he'd not joined their team, it will come as no surprise if Republicans move the HD 106 race to the top of their priority list in 2008 with a vigorous and well-funded effort to knock him off as payback for turning on them. The GOP probably will hope to make an example out of England to show other Republican lawmakers what to expect if any should consider such a move in the future.

England's party switch is a calculated risk that has the potential to backfire in a district that no Democrats on the ballot have carried in recent memory. While Democrats have fared better in HD 106 in recent elections, the GOP's statewide slate of candidates won 55 percent of the vote there in 2006. Republican Governor Rick Perry received 37 percent of the vote in HD 106 while Democrat Chris Bell claimed 32 percent in the four-way battle for governor last year. El Paso jurist Bill Moody came closer in England's district than any other Democrat on the ballot in 2006 with 49.6 percent of the vote there.

The trend of Democrats switching to the GOP got under way amid Ronald Reagan's success in the 1980s and continued in the 1990s with the growth of the Republican Party in Texas in the 1990s. After former House member Anita Hill of Dallas abandoned the Democrats in favor of the GOP in 1981, Ray Keller of Duncanville and George Pierce of San Antonio followed suit when they spurned the Democratic Party and became Republicans in 1983. The next House member to make the switch to the GOP was Charlie Evans, who became a Republican in 1987.

Perry had been elected to the House three times as a Democrat before jumping to the GOP in 1989 and winning the agricultural commissioner's race as a Republican the following year. A Democratic House colleague, Ric Williamson of Weatherford, joined the Republican Party in 1995 several years before Perry tapped him to be a transportation commissioner. State Rep. Delwin Jones served in the House for nine years as a Democrat before returning 16 years later as a Republican. Chisum was the last House member to jump ship to the GOP when he bid farewell to the Democrats ten years ago.

The only House member who tried to go against the grain of the trend was Cleburne's Bernard Erickson, who was elected in a special election in 1992 as a Republican and served one full term before switching to the Democrats for a re-election bid in 1994. But Erickson never had the opportunity to represent his Central Texas district as a Democrat during a regular session because he was defeated by Republican Arlene Wohlgemuth after the party switch. Erickson did some close, losing to Wohlgemuth by 46 votes in an election that he contested unsuccessfully.

While a couple of House members who'd been elected as independents became Democrats in 1961 and 1971, you have to go back 50 years to find the last state representative to serve initially as a Republican before ending a career in the lower chamber as a Democrat like England hopes to do. That was Seguin's Herman Heideke, who was a Republican for one term from 1919 to 1921 before returning to the House 28 years later as a Democrat.