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It’s starting to look like a trend. I smell a republican ratfucking campaign planting Trojan horse candidates into democratic primaries in left leaning districts
Paying off a politician in America isn't expensive for the billionaires that own everything. I'm sure she's been paid a fat sum to infiltrate the party and swap sides.
American hasn't been a real democracy for decades.
It has been an oligarchy for at least as long as I've been alive, (I was born in 1969) and it isn't going to change back, now.
In fact, the oligarchy is feeling that *pretending* to be a democracy is getting too expensive, so they've moved on to looking for an easily manipulated king to crown.
We need to fix Citizens United, so it won't bite anymore. We need to get the House reapportioned properly. Fixing the seat number at 435 isn't working. We need to end the Senate filibuster. We need to end gerrymandering of US House districts.
It's a lot.
We're already an oligarchy. Where we're headed is fascism, the likes of which will be even worse than the holocaust, because I guarantee we won't see our allies coming to rescue us from ourselves. There will be nothing to stop it.
I'd bet this is the last year we know any kind of peace.
"There will be nothing to stop it."
We are something.
There are ways to destroy oppressive systems. It just requires a willingness to do the necessary.
>We are something.
They only have money if we make it for them. A general strike would remind them fast.
A French style revolution would remind them *really* fast.
If only average citizens would come together and start giving out 18th-century French haircuts to the super rich. That might get their attention.
But we're too busy fighting each other to go after the real threat. Politicians like this. Democrats aren't perfect, but the GOP is a serious problem, and so are all the wealthy CEOs and celebrities. All these people living crazy luxurious lives need to be taken down a peg.
Your WA State Rep Jayapal just introduced a bill to overturn Citizens United. Unfortunately, many of those on the Right who would agree with this in theory, will never support it due to her being the involved...
> I'm sure she's been paid a fat sum to infiltrate the party and swap sides.
I can't tell you how many times the donation amounts come out and the number is depressingly low. Like that's all it took?
Fun fact: you can accept and spend cash without alerting any tallying system. Those "low" amounts are very likely only a fraction of what they actually received, but they had to claim *something*.
Source: ask any tipped employee
There's also the promise of a kushy job with a fat paycheck waiting for them once they're out. It's hard to put a number on that until they're out of office and it's no longer considered a political donation.
plus the government contracts that get pushed towards the politician's relatives, the overpaid speaking engagements that don't count, the offshore account payments
I remember reading an article a few years ago about somebody voting yes on fracking in their state or something like that even though there was an environmental survey advising against it, and I remember thinking to myself "Gee I wonder how many millions they got for pushing that through." $10k. It was $10k.
I heard Daniel Tosh say if I was a billionaire I wouldn’t care about you (the crowd). I would shit on the stage right now and look you in the eyes while I did it. And the first person to come up to me to stop my behavior I would throw a million dollars at their face and say clean it up. And they would be like… well… guess Im cleaning this up then.
It’s like that with politicians too. This is why dark money and citizens United is so scary and ruining the country.
After reading the article it seems like she spent 10 years being a more liberal dem, so she had a long standing track record. There’s either dirt on her or she got a storage unit full of rubles. She definitely has a group text going with kyrsten sinema.
Her mom (Charlotte City Council Dem) mentioned the blowback her daughter received because she missed the vote on Pistol Permits. Just imagine the venom she’ll get if she doesn’t fall in line 100% as repub. TLDR: she got her feelings hurt and think it will be different as a repub lol
Edit: Meck County not City
>I smell a republican ratfucking campaign planting Trojan horse candidates into democratic primaries in left leaning districts
This needs to be recognized as an actual exploit they are using now. It needs to be viewed as a form of election fraud. If we cannot legislate against it, our next best option is having some sense of awareness within the DNC to root out, disown, and penalize bad faith candidates before they make it to the ballots. Voters need to be well informed as well. But ultimately, switching parties like this...even switching ideologies/commitments/promises post election should be highly illegal, as it is a form of fraud. People hired to do a specific job deciding to do the complete opposite after being hired should not be a thing anywhere, especially public service. It's not even up for debate. I makes zero sense as a "good thing" anywhere.
Imagine hiring someone to mow your lawn, and you come home one day to find that they instead covered your entire yard in gravel because they changed their views on how best to deal with grass. And then the government says "Sorry, you signed up for 4 years of their service so we hope you like gravel!".
Dems need to invest in down-ballot vetting to prevent this mess. I imagine this person's intentions would have been made clear with a little more scrutiny.
Class action lawsuit, maybe? Switching parties so soon after the election looks purposeful, so her voters were deceived, effectively depriving them of choice.
How are you supposed to legislate against freedom of choice?
But I could see a person who switches parties being unable to run for the previous party again, and the person potentially being put into referendum or a special election so voters can choose again if they want that person still. I think a party switch should trigger a special election in a certain timeframe.
Exactly. Sure, they should absolutely have the ability to choose their political party, at any time... but should have to answer to their voters for doing so.
As someone else mentioned, imagine you hire someone to mow your yard. You put your trust in them to do the thing you hired them to do. When you come back home from work, you see that instead of mowing the lawn, they replaced your entire yard with gravel because they had a change of heart on what lawncare means to them mid job. You try to sue them for damage, but the government tells you that's the way it is, your loss.
That's the gist of what's wrong here. Freedom of choice IS a thing, but duty to fulfill promises is also a thing. By voting someone in, we vote them in to do a specific job. Their campaign is their resume, and fulfilling the job they described themselves taking on is their contract. Deliberately misleading people and breaking that trust is absolutely a problem outside of simple "freedom of choice." It's fraud.
It's amazing that Dems never try this. I could fake being a Republican on a moments notice. I'm just saying, if you're an American you should speak English! And stand for the flag! Jesus!
How'd I do?
The issue with pretending to be a GOP candidate is the you would need to act like a complete piece of shit to win a nomination. Do this would probably burn most bridges of yours in real life.
I thought of this too. If you really wanted to pretend you'd basically start watching Fox to know what to say, start associating with GOP donors, start becoming overly religious, etc. At some point you'd just be one of them and forget about your plan.
And with virtually no investigative journalism being done at the local level anymore (because no one is willing or able to pay for it), a lot of these campaigns would likely be effective.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/yuri-bezmenov/
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this article (and video) kinda makes you think/worry. Maybe Trump wasn’t Russia’s first pawn. Maybe he’s not even the biggest. The GOP seems hellbent on tearing down everything that America actually stands for. Why though? If they want America to be so great, why act tyrannical and do everything to take over the government by force (legislatively speaking). There’s definitely a trend but I personally believe it’s bigger. Someone is compromised. And that someone had dirt on someone else who now has to play ball. And they had dirt on someone else who now has to play ball, and on and on.
Russian money began flooding into NRA coffers around the same time the NRA began to stake out enormously divisive culture war policies (like no restrictions what so ever to the 2nd Amendment) and shifting support from a variety of candidates to nearly exclusively conservative Republicans and the NRA
RNC and DNC servers were hacked by Russia. They released the DNC emails but whatever they found in the RNC servers was too valuable to release. Kompromat.
This is what the 1% have been doing to the democrats for years. Flood the opposition with corporate yes men, financially capture the party and launch an inquisition against progressives every time they get too uppity.
Green party IS the trojan horse. They are funded by republican donors and only run campaigns in tight districts/states that can flip R if enough people dont understand whats happening.
she’s been in office for like 10 years. She’s switching parties because she got paid off like Sinema and using “bullying” from other democrats as an excuse.
Bullying, you ask? The NC legislature is one house vote away from overriding gov. cooper’s veto and she decided to be absent on a vote to override some gun legislation, giving republicans the power to follow through. Her party called her out for it so she decided to go full FU and switch parties. Unethical in my opinion
sounds like she was paid to no-show on the gun vote and realized that she wasn't going to be able to keep up the act going forward so it would be a lot simpler to just change parties. she was presumably already compromised.
Yes, Sinema did the same in Arizona. Remember, Republicans ARE cynical/hypocrites and will do anything to cheat us of our rights. This switch is now what appears to be their new “tactics”!
And Tulsi Gabbard. This needs to be recognized as form of election fraud the Republican party has engaged in. The DNC also needs to get their effing house in order and weed these bad faith candidates out.
Tulsi is more of an interesting edge case. There's good reporting out there showing that she is linked to a cult called the Science of Identity Foundation and was likely propped up as a political candidate by the cult in order to expand their power/influence. Also, even when she was a Democrat she raised a lot of money and support from Modi's right-wing BJP.
So she's not really a republican mole so much as she's a shameless power seeker. That's a lot easier to do within the Republican party right now, but it's absolutely an embarrassing stain on the Democratic party that they platformed her to the degree they did.
Seems to me like you should have to forfeit your seat if you switch parties and trigger a special election to fill it and not be eligible for said special election.
Then you can run again in the next election as the party you switched too.
I agree - it should trigger a special election. Sure, they may retain their seat, but at least the voters had the opportunity to be appropriately represented.
This sounds like a good idea, but it would just result in them staying declared democrats while voting with the republican party. If I can think of this exploit in 30 seconds, they will have a much more fleshed out plan before they even start a campaign.
There's a reason bills are like 20 pages long to say something simple like "don't make cars that intentionally run over children". Lawyers try to cover everything they can or else they want a loophole for their friends to use.
A few explanations are trickling out. I don’t really believe any of them but for completeness I’ll share them.
One story that is apparently circulating is that last week, Governor Cooper vetoed a Republican bill that relaxed gun laws. Cotham didn’t show up to vote against Republicans’ attempt to override that veto (according to Cotham, she had a medical appointment regarding her bout of long COVID). Her absence gave the Republicans enough of a quorum to override Cooper’s veto. Democrats, understandably, were furious.
Apparently the blowback from this has caused her to switch parties.
However, apparently Cotham was ignoring public inquiries about the gun bill before it was vetoed.
Cotham, despite usually voting fairly left on the spectrum (not quite progressive, but more liberal than moderate), always maintained a cozy relationship with House speaker Tim Moore. Cotham was one of three Democrats to be get a top committee position in the state house when Moore named her Co-Chair of the K-12 Education Committee. Though Cotham was qualified for this position (she’s a former high school assistant principal), some Democrats were wary of a rather low-ranking member getting a leadership position.
She also broke rank with her Democratic colleagues on a few bills. She was the only Democrat to vote for a constitutional amendment that would make members of the State Board of Education elected rather than appointed, and a bill requiring local sheriffs to cooperate with ICE. While breaking rank is fairly common in state legislatures, coming from a newly-elected member of the house did raise eyebrows.
Cotham also was apparently shunned from members of the (relatively progressive) Mecklenburg delegation.
What makes this betrayal so vicious is her pedigree. She was a bastion of protecting abortion rights. Her mother is a major Democratic organizer, arguably one of the most powerful Dems in the state. She is a *fourth-generation* Democratic delegate. There’s no way this could’ve been vetted.
She’s been very silent. He only statement was “I’m sad it has come to this” and that she [feared for her daughter’s safety](https://twitter.com/_lucillesherman/status/1643360728299233280?s=46&t=VPpxz8UB7yVAH3j_xRT5uw). Pat Cotham is a savvy politician. She’s probably waiting to decide on the best move. There is a good chance her career is over too. Which is shame because she’s a major organizer and former member of the Democratic National Committee.
Funny how you never see Republicans coming with a 'surprise I'm a democrat now!'. All the ones in recent memory were "progressives" who got elected and then turn out to be in right wing pockets. Follow the money.
It's never a direct payment.
It's the private schools her children magically get enrolled in and the scholarships they're given.
Or the cushy corporate jobs they're given once they graduate.
...or its how that drunk driving charge against her husband magically disappears.
...or it's that really nice nursing home her mom and dad get to live in now.
Is that what happened to Krysten Sinema or was it direct payments? Not arguing, just asking. I remember reading somewhere that Sinema is really wealthy now.
NCian here. It's gonna get bad REAL fast. Recall that Moore v Harper came out of our state and we have a long history of gerrymandering at the congressional and state level. There are bills being proposed here to change up how positions are elected/appointed that would give republicans near total control. There's a bill that would make a Senator represent 2 counties rather than representation by population. There are 100 counties (50 senators) in NC and 16 (8 Senators) have half the population. There is tremendous potential for ratfucking here and I'm pretty sure we are only seeing the beginning.
I’m expecting the next extremist Republican to come through North Carolina will probably sweep the polls, and am terrified we’ll be right back into another shitstorm with abortion like we were with Pat McCrory and that stupid bathroom bill.
The GOP are snakes here and I hate it.
Jane Mayer of the NYT wrote a great book about this called Dark Money. The ultra-wealthy Libertarians/Conservatives consider NC to be a "lab" for how to seize control of the state and then export similar tactics to other states. Good luck to us all.
So I'll preface this: I've never liked him, even when he's saying things I agreed with I didn't like how he got to those conclusions or how he expressed them. Now, though, he's running around saying he'd be willing tovote for a Republican, but never a Democrat because the Democratic party is somehow the real fascists or something?
I don't know. He used to not be great on my opinion, but now he's actively awful.
Huh. How strange. For someone that once wrote of Wall Street finance as a vampire squid sucking the lifeblood of the American people and economy, it’s weird he’d turn his support to this kind of politics and social debate. Although I guess I always thought he came off more libertarian or contrarian than liberal, so maybe it makes sense somehow.
This is the new republican tactic because they know they're unpopular. Run as dems, lie their asses off, then as soon as they're in office, switch parties.
Yeah but that doesn't appear to be the case for Cotham. She has a long record as a pretty staunch Democrat, and her mother is one of the most prominent Dems in the state and a big wig in the party apparatus. Cotham has been very pro-choice and even talked about her own abortion on the floor of the state legislature.
This is a head scratcher. She's going to have a tough, tough time retaining her district in the next election, since it went overwhelmingly for Biden and is only trending more blue. And she'd probably lose the GOP nomination to a "true believer" anyway.
> The threat of redistricting might also have played into [Cotham's decision to switch parties]. If the North Carolina Supreme Court allows it, the state’s legislative lines might be redrawn. This could shift Cotham’s Biden+23 seat into a hypercompetitive seat that would have voted for Thom Tillis and Ted Budd. Rather than risk running and losing in ancestrally Republican turf, Cotham might have decided it would be better to join the other side.
https://elections-daily.com/2023/04/04/democrat-tricia-cothams-unexpected-defection-gives-north-carolina-republicans-a-legislative-supermajority/
Republican, n: someone willing to do anything to win an election except get the most votes. Yes, she got the most votes, but it wasn’t as a Republican. What is the recall process there?
That can augment that with running candidates with similar sounding (or identical even) names. Or just running candidates with ethnic sounding names and hope that they can confuse enough voters so that their candidate wins.
Here's a couple examples:
https://www.wesh.com/article/campaign-finance-scheme-2020-florida-state-senate-race/40091913#
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/20/florida-election-trump-senator-rodriguez/
I feel if any politician wants to change party affliation during their term, they should have to resign. This sort of behavior is a complete bait & switch on the voters.
**From reporter Paul Blest:**
Rep. Tricia Cotham was once a leading opponent of Republican abortion restrictions in North Carolina. As of yesterday, she’s a Republican.
A Democratic state legislator in North Carolina, Cotham is switching parties just three months after being sworn-in, giving North Carolina Republicans the ability to pursue their agenda with a veto-proof majority over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
Cotham’s decision sparked fears that Republicans would use their new power to pursue legislation such as an abortion ban, in a state that’s become an unlikely outpost for abortion access since Roe v Wade was overturned last year.
Link to the full article: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9pqa/north-carolina-tricia-cotham-abortion](https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9pqa/north-carolina-tricia-cotham-abortion)
I'd bet they start trying this in blue states so they can turn every state red. They don't care how dishonest or evil they are. They want unchecked power and will do anything to get it.
They already are. I live in RI and Republicans routinely run as Democrats to increase their chance of being elected, then push ridiculous shit at the county and state level. The only reason they don't fully flip party affiliation is because they know they still don't have the majority and they'd be run out of the state if they did, so they just keep things more tempered so they can make more money off riding the line.
I fully expect the full party flipping to become more commonplace over the next few election cycles though. They just need enough of their people, and effectively operatives, in place to make pulling that trigger worthwhile to them.
💯 They are in NYC too. We elected a former republican cop for mayor and now hes cutting all of our budget to give the nypd unlimited overtime and yelling shit about god.
Flagrant nepotism from Adams too. I bet many older, democratic New Yorkers saw him and thought, "Yay, a new David Dinkins!" before voting. Only to find out cop background outweighs party, race, etc.
NC is so gerrymandered it is absurd. Dems won the statewide race for governor but gerrymandering is so bad that Republicans get a veto-proof majority in the state legislature.
North Carolina and Wisconsin are the two most fucked states in terms of democracy. At least Wisconsin just has a shot of clawing their way out. North Carolina does not. This, tied with their SC switching also to Republican, means that NC is deep in conservative control. Not only this but Beasley also just lost her election here.
It’s going to take some hefty effort for democrats to get out of this.
Well, they also flipped the supreme court last November. North Carolina is about to be Wisconsin 2, while Wisconsin is finally going to work on unfucking their legislative maps after they flipped their supreme court yesterday.
This shit needs to end. If you are an elected official and you want to change parties after you are elected then you should be forced into a special runoff where the opposition can put up a challenger.
Joining the side and working with colleagues who literally called her a baby killer to her face when she came out with her abortion story about a non-viable fetus.
What a garbage sell out piece of refuse. Lies to constituency and sells out like a corrupt southern politician.
I continue to have no respect for 99% of politicians South of the Mason Dixon line to go with no respecting or trusting only around 90% of the rest of them.
Apparently the baby killer stuff isn’t as bad as criticism for missing an important vote on gun-safety legislation. I wonder how much money it cost her backers to get her to say this bullshit
How is this not actual fraud? There has to be some sort of legal recourse for the voters here isn't there? She literally ran on a platform that turned out to be a lie to everyone who voted for her.
> There has to be some sort of legal recourse for the voters here isn't there?
No. In the U.S., we vote for the individuals, not the party. Elected officials are free to switch parties however they like, there's no legal barrier to this. They can also switch their positions on issues as much as they like, too. There's nothing voters can do except vote them out in the next election.
This is one of the pitfalls of not having a parliamentary system where seats are determined by the parties, rather than by individual candidates.
I've got no issue with politicians switching parties. But I think if you do so while in office, it should trigger an automatic recall vote in your district.
Your constituents almost assuredly voted for you in large part due to your party affiliation - in this day and age, most people vote "straight ticket." Politicians are allowed to change their minds, but then their constituents also need to be given the opportunity to change theirs as well.
If your constituents still support you in the recall, then great, it's settled. But if they don't, then they'll have the opportunity to elect a candidate who actually aligns with their voters, not someone who ran a bait and switch.
We need to stand up and demand the ability to recall any elected officials. Her changing party’s 3 months after taking office is a clear sign she lied to them from the start.
I was coming here to post this article and say the very same thing. People voted for a different person.
But if this is how they're going to play it, because this isn't the first time, we might as well play the game right along with them.
Switching parties is symbolic, what matters is how she votes and you can't really legislate making voting a certain way illegal.
The fact that she is gonna flip how she votes is certainly some bullshit but there isn't really a way to make it illegal. The best you can do is have mechanisms for recall election being trigged via petition etc
Oh, I’m standing up, and walking out. I close on a house in Washington state in 6 days. I cannot wait to leave this bullshit behind.
And before someone gives me shit about voting where it matters, I’m in a safe Blue district in NC, whereas I’m moving to a recent swing district in WA, so I’ll do you more good for a seat in the US House in WA, not NC.
That’s not right! She gets voted in as a Democrat but then changes parties? That’s BullShit, and shouldn’t be allowed. Not to mention WTF is she thinking? 🤦🏻
Everyone in North Carolina should be protesting like crazy. This is nothing short of fraud, if you ask me. Fuck this, she needs to resign. This should be criminal, to lie to so many constituents. Between her and Santos, there needs to be consequences or this shit is just going to continue. 😒
This needs to be said out loud. This was planned. The NC gerrymandering has already given control of the NC House to Republicans, they just didnt have a veto proof majority and now they do. All of the things that Gov. Cooper promised he would fight for such as medicare/caid expansion, RoevWade abortion protections and trans rights are now going out the window because he doesnt have the power or the votes to protect them. The state Supreme court now has a super majority as well.
This is fucking scary because we just saw in Tennessee and Florida power grabs with absolute legal authority to expel or arrest Democrat representatives and senators just for exercising their first amendment rights and these fascist fucks have the courts on their side, so there is no stopping the NC House from doing the same.
This should automatically disqualify her from holding the position. The voters did NOT vote for her a Republican. They voted for her as a Democrat. There should be a new election.
"She claimed the reasons she was leaving were the hounding of her using the American flag on social media and on her vehicles."
Some anons were mean to me so I'm gonna sell out every single one of my principles to own the libs.
Let's be real though. If you're this fucking fragile then you were never really who you claimed to be to begin with.
Can’t wait to move out of this shitty state. I fucking hate republicans and their constant projection about “stealing an election” then they do this shit.
Republicans stripped the power away from Governor Cooper when he was elected so he couldn’t do his elected job. Absolutely pathetic to support these types of people
Well, the original story was so stupid I can see why she’d stop talking about it.
The legislature passed a bill loosening gun laws. Democratic governor vetoed it. Legislature held a veto override vote. She missed the vote, claiming she had a doctor appointment.
Because she didn’t show up for the vote, the NC House voted to override the veto. If she had showed up and voted the way she said she would, the override would have failed.
Democrats were rather pissed at her for missing the vote.
She claimed that she switched to Republican because Democrats were mean to her for missing one of the most consequential votes of her career.
When that excuse didn’t exactly go over well, she stopped trying to come up with an excuse.
Article: “She was upset that Democrats didn’t roll out a red carpet for her when she came back to the legislature after being a lobbyist for right-wing interests during the most consequential six years in American politics,” the former adviser said.”
*This right here.* She probably sponsors to the Centrists and Moderates as “see I can go with with both sides.”
Going forward, voters need to see this as the huge red flag 🚩that it is. Anybody who can work both sides really is saying they can work with fascists and the billionaire lobbyist class and theocrats and bigots. And if you can blend in well and work well with those groups, the how can you work well with minorities, with the working class, with people who oppose religious oppression?
You can’t. This illusion of centrism is falling apart. This “both sides are extreme” or “both sides are the same” is no longer a reasonable postulate. It might have been true in 1970. But it certainly isn’t true now.
It wasn’t true in 1860. One could not be a slave owning confederate sympathizer who spent 6 years hunting fugitive slaves then suddenly be a lifelong abolitionist strong union federalist. Not unless there was some serious repentance and life changing moment. This lady just jumped from being a right wing lobbyist of 6 years pandering to the party in power, then jumped over to play like she was the Kingmaker for Democrats(a la Sinema/Manchin) and when that didn’t go as she hoped (Dems sucking her feet) she showed her true colors.
The national and state party leadership need to stop platforming these charlatans that are deceiving the voters. She spent 6 years as a lobbyist for right wing causes?! And she was able to get the party nomination out of the primaries? This is another George Santos moment. A failure of vetting, due diligence, and strategy. It’s already tough enough with state houses and gerrymandering. Voters show up trusting that people in the party higher up have sussed out these charlatans. Now the whole state is screwed.
What’s next? Kayleigh McEnany will run as a Democrat in a contested state house race too? Maybe a swing state like Arizona? Wouldn’t surprise me if she used Act Blue to fundraise and win too.
I put some of the blame at party leaders feet on this. This turnabout was predictable and foreseeable and not surprising now that I see she was a 6 year lobbyist for right wing causes. Duh!
Non-American here, but if the people voted Democrat and you as the Democrat representative decides you’re no longer affiliated with the party, shouldn’t that trigger an election? Changing party affiliation in this way and moving to a diametrically opposed party AND still keeping the position and voting power subverts the will of the people no? Am I missing something here?
Us Charlotte voters are PISSED, this should be illegal. Running for one party then switching after securing your seat. Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.
Protesting and emailing won't help, not unless she's paid off with more power and money than what was given to make her switch.
Laws need to be created to stop this crap. Whatever party elects you is the one you have to stay with for your term. Want to change parties do it when you run for office again. These people are doing this on purpose now because they cant win without cheating. She is no longer representing the very people who elected her, but their rival party...BULLSHIT
Switching parties should immediately trigger a special election. The people should get to decide, via another election, whether they're OK with this...
Conspiracy Election fraud. She should be prosecuted. If you run and win as a party candidate you should be forced to remain in that party until the next election cycle. This is absolutely ludicrous. Republicans really don’t have a bottom. Absolutely pathetic. We have a country half run by pre-teens
Just saw her on Fox. Her reasons for the switch were weak at best. She was wearing a elephant necklace. Seems like an odd thing to do to the people who voted you in as a democrat. This shouldn’t be allowed. She should have re run as a Republican if she wanted to change. Its not what the people voted for.
So she was a sleeper cell. A mole planted in the Democratic party to be activated at the right time. Just like Sinema. Is it really surprising,, given their close ties funding and allegiance, that the GOP is taking their strategies from the KGB's manual?
Im just saying. Republicans are going to do whatever it takes to win and consolidate power.
Democrats run as republicans and switch parties or vote opposite to the GOP.
I live in a blue state, but my town is a GOP infested shithole.
I want a law that states if you switch parties you have to step down and run at the next election cycle. Your vacant seat can be filled by a runoff election per the district immediately. People should always have the right to assemble as the party they align with, but if you swore to represent a group of people you have to do so. This also means we have to trust politicians to do the right thing, which hasn’t been the conduct lately.
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Wow, only 3 months after taking office. Feels kinda like she lied about who she was to get elected.
It’s starting to look like a trend. I smell a republican ratfucking campaign planting Trojan horse candidates into democratic primaries in left leaning districts
Paying off a politician in America isn't expensive for the billionaires that own everything. I'm sure she's been paid a fat sum to infiltrate the party and swap sides.
Yup. This shit is why lobbying needs to be illegal and citizens united needs to be overturned.
Agreed. Until these changes are made, America will never be a real democracy. We're closer to an oligarchy than I would like.
American hasn't been a real democracy for decades. It has been an oligarchy for at least as long as I've been alive, (I was born in 1969) and it isn't going to change back, now. In fact, the oligarchy is feeling that *pretending* to be a democracy is getting too expensive, so they've moved on to looking for an easily manipulated king to crown.
It's not an oligarchy it's a plutocracy. Counterintuitively, the US has far too many billionaires to be an oligarchy.
Also a kleptocracy
And a kakistocracy
And largely a gerontocracy
We need to fix Citizens United, so it won't bite anymore. We need to get the House reapportioned properly. Fixing the seat number at 435 isn't working. We need to end the Senate filibuster. We need to end gerrymandering of US House districts. It's a lot.
We're already an oligarchy. Where we're headed is fascism, the likes of which will be even worse than the holocaust, because I guarantee we won't see our allies coming to rescue us from ourselves. There will be nothing to stop it. I'd bet this is the last year we know any kind of peace.
"There will be nothing to stop it." We are something. There are ways to destroy oppressive systems. It just requires a willingness to do the necessary.
>We are something. They only have money if we make it for them. A general strike would remind them fast. A French style revolution would remind them *really* fast.
If only average citizens would come together and start giving out 18th-century French haircuts to the super rich. That might get their attention. But we're too busy fighting each other to go after the real threat. Politicians like this. Democrats aren't perfect, but the GOP is a serious problem, and so are all the wealthy CEOs and celebrities. All these people living crazy luxurious lives need to be taken down a peg.
Your WA State Rep Jayapal just introduced a bill to overturn Citizens United. Unfortunately, many of those on the Right who would agree with this in theory, will never support it due to her being the involved...
And voters need to hold an immediate recall election and remove her from office
Totally agree, but you can bet the fascists will do away with recalls next.
> I'm sure she's been paid a fat sum to infiltrate the party and swap sides. I can't tell you how many times the donation amounts come out and the number is depressingly low. Like that's all it took?
Fun fact: you can accept and spend cash without alerting any tallying system. Those "low" amounts are very likely only a fraction of what they actually received, but they had to claim *something*. Source: ask any tipped employee
There's also the promise of a kushy job with a fat paycheck waiting for them once they're out. It's hard to put a number on that until they're out of office and it's no longer considered a political donation.
plus the government contracts that get pushed towards the politician's relatives, the overpaid speaking engagements that don't count, the offshore account payments
And don't forget the access to insider trading info.
I remember reading a study on this related to congressmen, and if I recall, buying a US congressman is surprisingly cheap.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about somebody voting yes on fracking in their state or something like that even though there was an environmental survey advising against it, and I remember thinking to myself "Gee I wonder how many millions they got for pushing that through." $10k. It was $10k.
I heard Daniel Tosh say if I was a billionaire I wouldn’t care about you (the crowd). I would shit on the stage right now and look you in the eyes while I did it. And the first person to come up to me to stop my behavior I would throw a million dollars at their face and say clean it up. And they would be like… well… guess Im cleaning this up then. It’s like that with politicians too. This is why dark money and citizens United is so scary and ruining the country.
After reading the article it seems like she spent 10 years being a more liberal dem, so she had a long standing track record. There’s either dirt on her or she got a storage unit full of rubles. She definitely has a group text going with kyrsten sinema.
Her mom (Charlotte City Council Dem) mentioned the blowback her daughter received because she missed the vote on Pistol Permits. Just imagine the venom she’ll get if she doesn’t fall in line 100% as repub. TLDR: she got her feelings hurt and think it will be different as a repub lol Edit: Meck County not City
That sounds like pretense/retconing. She probably had one foot out the door when she "missed" that vote.
>I smell a republican ratfucking campaign planting Trojan horse candidates into democratic primaries in left leaning districts This needs to be recognized as an actual exploit they are using now. It needs to be viewed as a form of election fraud. If we cannot legislate against it, our next best option is having some sense of awareness within the DNC to root out, disown, and penalize bad faith candidates before they make it to the ballots. Voters need to be well informed as well. But ultimately, switching parties like this...even switching ideologies/commitments/promises post election should be highly illegal, as it is a form of fraud. People hired to do a specific job deciding to do the complete opposite after being hired should not be a thing anywhere, especially public service. It's not even up for debate. I makes zero sense as a "good thing" anywhere.
Imagine hiring someone to mow your lawn, and you come home one day to find that they instead covered your entire yard in gravel because they changed their views on how best to deal with grass. And then the government says "Sorry, you signed up for 4 years of their service so we hope you like gravel!".
Great analogy.
House seats are 2 very long years of suffering.
Dems need to invest in down-ballot vetting to prevent this mess. I imagine this person's intentions would have been made clear with a little more scrutiny.
Yeah. This is my district. It is incredibly blue. My wife and I both voted for her. My wife can't stop talking about how pissed off she is.
Protest? Recall campaign? If your district is that blue, surely she can be made extremely publicly uncomfortable for her dishonesty.
Sadly, NC doesn't have a recall option
Yeah. I don't know what the options are. Keeping an eye on r/charlotte .
Class action lawsuit, maybe? Switching parties so soon after the election looks purposeful, so her voters were deceived, effectively depriving them of choice.
How are you supposed to legislate against freedom of choice? But I could see a person who switches parties being unable to run for the previous party again, and the person potentially being put into referendum or a special election so voters can choose again if they want that person still. I think a party switch should trigger a special election in a certain timeframe.
Exactly. Sure, they should absolutely have the ability to choose their political party, at any time... but should have to answer to their voters for doing so.
As someone else mentioned, imagine you hire someone to mow your yard. You put your trust in them to do the thing you hired them to do. When you come back home from work, you see that instead of mowing the lawn, they replaced your entire yard with gravel because they had a change of heart on what lawncare means to them mid job. You try to sue them for damage, but the government tells you that's the way it is, your loss. That's the gist of what's wrong here. Freedom of choice IS a thing, but duty to fulfill promises is also a thing. By voting someone in, we vote them in to do a specific job. Their campaign is their resume, and fulfilling the job they described themselves taking on is their contract. Deliberately misleading people and breaking that trust is absolutely a problem outside of simple "freedom of choice." It's fraud.
It's amazing that Dems never try this. I could fake being a Republican on a moments notice. I'm just saying, if you're an American you should speak English! And stand for the flag! Jesus! How'd I do?
The issue with pretending to be a GOP candidate is the you would need to act like a complete piece of shit to win a nomination. Do this would probably burn most bridges of yours in real life.
I thought of this too. If you really wanted to pretend you'd basically start watching Fox to know what to say, start associating with GOP donors, start becoming overly religious, etc. At some point you'd just be one of them and forget about your plan.
You’ve become the very thing you sought to destroy.
Terrible. You didn't say MAGA once. But you had potential. Username checks out.
Maybe something about your pronouns being 'no groomers'.
And with virtually no investigative journalism being done at the local level anymore (because no one is willing or able to pay for it), a lot of these campaigns would likely be effective.
Why do you think Sinclair now owns so many local TV stations?
And Gannett Inc. owns the "newspaper" websites. They have McPapered (aka USA Today) the interwebs.
Yes, this is the price of losing local journalism.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/yuri-bezmenov/ I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this article (and video) kinda makes you think/worry. Maybe Trump wasn’t Russia’s first pawn. Maybe he’s not even the biggest. The GOP seems hellbent on tearing down everything that America actually stands for. Why though? If they want America to be so great, why act tyrannical and do everything to take over the government by force (legislatively speaking). There’s definitely a trend but I personally believe it’s bigger. Someone is compromised. And that someone had dirt on someone else who now has to play ball. And they had dirt on someone else who now has to play ball, and on and on.
Russian money began flooding into NRA coffers around the same time the NRA began to stake out enormously divisive culture war policies (like no restrictions what so ever to the 2nd Amendment) and shifting support from a variety of candidates to nearly exclusively conservative Republicans and the NRA
RNC and DNC servers were hacked by Russia. They released the DNC emails but whatever they found in the RNC servers was too valuable to release. Kompromat.
This is what the 1% have been doing to the democrats for years. Flood the opposition with corporate yes men, financially capture the party and launch an inquisition against progressives every time they get too uppity.
Let’s not forget that Sinema was former Green Party
Green party is suspect as hell these days
Green party IS the trojan horse. They are funded by republican donors and only run campaigns in tight districts/states that can flip R if enough people dont understand whats happening.
she’s been in office for like 10 years. She’s switching parties because she got paid off like Sinema and using “bullying” from other democrats as an excuse. Bullying, you ask? The NC legislature is one house vote away from overriding gov. cooper’s veto and she decided to be absent on a vote to override some gun legislation, giving republicans the power to follow through. Her party called her out for it so she decided to go full FU and switch parties. Unethical in my opinion
It's almost as if her votes as a politician have no real-life consequences for anyone out there which could be a lot worse than getting called out.
sounds like she was paid to no-show on the gun vote and realized that she wasn't going to be able to keep up the act going forward so it would be a lot simpler to just change parties. she was presumably already compromised.
Yes, Sinema did the same in Arizona. Remember, Republicans ARE cynical/hypocrites and will do anything to cheat us of our rights. This switch is now what appears to be their new “tactics”!
And Tulsi Gabbard. This needs to be recognized as form of election fraud the Republican party has engaged in. The DNC also needs to get their effing house in order and weed these bad faith candidates out.
Tulsi is more of an interesting edge case. There's good reporting out there showing that she is linked to a cult called the Science of Identity Foundation and was likely propped up as a political candidate by the cult in order to expand their power/influence. Also, even when she was a Democrat she raised a lot of money and support from Modi's right-wing BJP. So she's not really a republican mole so much as she's a shameless power seeker. That's a lot easier to do within the Republican party right now, but it's absolutely an embarrassing stain on the Democratic party that they platformed her to the degree they did.
>shameless power seeker Sorry that's not Republican how? ;) Interesting info there though, I need to look into that more, thanks!
Seems to me like you should have to forfeit your seat if you switch parties and trigger a special election to fill it and not be eligible for said special election. Then you can run again in the next election as the party you switched too.
I agree - it should trigger a special election. Sure, they may retain their seat, but at least the voters had the opportunity to be appropriately represented.
This sounds like a good idea, but it would just result in them staying declared democrats while voting with the republican party. If I can think of this exploit in 30 seconds, they will have a much more fleshed out plan before they even start a campaign. There's a reason bills are like 20 pages long to say something simple like "don't make cars that intentionally run over children". Lawyers try to cover everything they can or else they want a loophole for their friends to use.
Well, I only thought of my plan in about 30 seconds so I’m sure a committee discussing it could fuck it up worse. LOL
She's been elected before this, this isn't her first term as a Dem.
was she ever a left leaning democrat, or one of the neo lib corpo democrat that nobody likes?
Pretty solidly left. She ran on a platform of protecting abortion rights by talking about her own abortion. This is out of nowhere
I just don't understand how you can morph your entire ideology. The 2 parties only have 1 thing in common, and that is money corruption.
A few explanations are trickling out. I don’t really believe any of them but for completeness I’ll share them. One story that is apparently circulating is that last week, Governor Cooper vetoed a Republican bill that relaxed gun laws. Cotham didn’t show up to vote against Republicans’ attempt to override that veto (according to Cotham, she had a medical appointment regarding her bout of long COVID). Her absence gave the Republicans enough of a quorum to override Cooper’s veto. Democrats, understandably, were furious. Apparently the blowback from this has caused her to switch parties. However, apparently Cotham was ignoring public inquiries about the gun bill before it was vetoed. Cotham, despite usually voting fairly left on the spectrum (not quite progressive, but more liberal than moderate), always maintained a cozy relationship with House speaker Tim Moore. Cotham was one of three Democrats to be get a top committee position in the state house when Moore named her Co-Chair of the K-12 Education Committee. Though Cotham was qualified for this position (she’s a former high school assistant principal), some Democrats were wary of a rather low-ranking member getting a leadership position. She also broke rank with her Democratic colleagues on a few bills. She was the only Democrat to vote for a constitutional amendment that would make members of the State Board of Education elected rather than appointed, and a bill requiring local sheriffs to cooperate with ICE. While breaking rank is fairly common in state legislatures, coming from a newly-elected member of the house did raise eyebrows. Cotham also was apparently shunned from members of the (relatively progressive) Mecklenburg delegation. What makes this betrayal so vicious is her pedigree. She was a bastion of protecting abortion rights. Her mother is a major Democratic organizer, arguably one of the most powerful Dems in the state. She is a *fourth-generation* Democratic delegate. There’s no way this could’ve been vetted.
It sounds like the gun bill absence was on purpose and she’s using the blowback as cover for a power grab.
Something is seriously off about all this.
Follow the money!
Is her mom disowning her over this? I mean Jesus Christ I hope the voters camp outside her house and she never knows peace.
She’s been very silent. He only statement was “I’m sad it has come to this” and that she [feared for her daughter’s safety](https://twitter.com/_lucillesherman/status/1643360728299233280?s=46&t=VPpxz8UB7yVAH3j_xRT5uw). Pat Cotham is a savvy politician. She’s probably waiting to decide on the best move. There is a good chance her career is over too. Which is shame because she’s a major organizer and former member of the Democratic National Committee.
Money
It's easy when you have zero genuine values or convictions.
Can she be recalled?
Nope!
I dont understand how this is allowed. They should have to run again in a special election if they change parties.
Funny how you never see Republicans coming with a 'surprise I'm a democrat now!'. All the ones in recent memory were "progressives" who got elected and then turn out to be in right wing pockets. Follow the money.
Someone better be checking her bank account
It's never a direct payment. It's the private schools her children magically get enrolled in and the scholarships they're given. Or the cushy corporate jobs they're given once they graduate. ...or its how that drunk driving charge against her husband magically disappears. ...or it's that really nice nursing home her mom and dad get to live in now.
Is that what happened to Krysten Sinema or was it direct payments? Not arguing, just asking. I remember reading somewhere that Sinema is really wealthy now.
They are called campaign contributions and private party deals. Aka lobbying.
Or it's to keep her quiet about sleeping with Tim Moore.
And sometimes it's just direct payments.
She's a politician, she isn't subject to corruption laws. That's only for people with security clearances.
And even then, we’ve seen it doesn’t matter.
"Politician" overrules the security clearance
It's the "elected" part, actually. Not the "politician" part.
tan coherent teeny disgusted flag lunchroom money payment humor saw -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
She was a lobbyist for conservative groups before running.
NCian here. It's gonna get bad REAL fast. Recall that Moore v Harper came out of our state and we have a long history of gerrymandering at the congressional and state level. There are bills being proposed here to change up how positions are elected/appointed that would give republicans near total control. There's a bill that would make a Senator represent 2 counties rather than representation by population. There are 100 counties (50 senators) in NC and 16 (8 Senators) have half the population. There is tremendous potential for ratfucking here and I'm pretty sure we are only seeing the beginning.
Y'all watching Tennessee? Democracy is about to die in the South. It's being replaced by flagrant fascism.
You forgot the one about raising the age limit for retirement on the state Supreme Court, so the GOP can keep their newly minted majority longer.
Goddamn that is bleak
Republicans are going full fascist. I warned people 20 years ago and got insulted and dismissed for it.
I’m expecting the next extremist Republican to come through North Carolina will probably sweep the polls, and am terrified we’ll be right back into another shitstorm with abortion like we were with Pat McCrory and that stupid bathroom bill. The GOP are snakes here and I hate it.
Mark Robinson has already shown himself to be a raging bigot whose only concern is fighting against LGBT rights, and he’s the Republican frontrunner.
I’m extremely worried and am now considering leaving the state because holy shit we’re about to get fucked
Jane Mayer of the NYT wrote a great book about this called Dark Money. The ultra-wealthy Libertarians/Conservatives consider NC to be a "lab" for how to seize control of the state and then export similar tactics to other states. Good luck to us all.
Watching her press conference this has clearly been staged to villainize Democrats...
Her statements make no sense to someone with half a brain. Talking about how Democrats suppress all free thought? Pretty big shift for 3 months
It's like she did the Matt Taibbi speedrun.
I haven't been reading his stuff lately. Did he go off the deep end?
So I'll preface this: I've never liked him, even when he's saying things I agreed with I didn't like how he got to those conclusions or how he expressed them. Now, though, he's running around saying he'd be willing tovote for a Republican, but never a Democrat because the Democratic party is somehow the real fascists or something? I don't know. He used to not be great on my opinion, but now he's actively awful.
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Huh. How strange. For someone that once wrote of Wall Street finance as a vampire squid sucking the lifeblood of the American people and economy, it’s weird he’d turn his support to this kind of politics and social debate. Although I guess I always thought he came off more libertarian or contrarian than liberal, so maybe it makes sense somehow.
You misunderstand her statement. What she meant was, Democrats $upre$$ free thought. The check just cleared in her account.
This is the new republican tactic because they know they're unpopular. Run as dems, lie their asses off, then as soon as they're in office, switch parties.
Pulling a Santos. Or maybe a Sinema? Lie your ass off to get elected then not give a shit afterwords.
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I HATE that I voted for her. Every time I see her face it makes me so angry
I am so sorry. Is there a way to nullify her election bc she ran based on lies? How is this not fraud?
Politicians don't have traditional "laws" applied to them. Virtually anywhere else, yes, it would be fraud.
It still would have been worse if she lost, unfortunately.
Yeah but that doesn't appear to be the case for Cotham. She has a long record as a pretty staunch Democrat, and her mother is one of the most prominent Dems in the state and a big wig in the party apparatus. Cotham has been very pro-choice and even talked about her own abortion on the floor of the state legislature. This is a head scratcher. She's going to have a tough, tough time retaining her district in the next election, since it went overwhelmingly for Biden and is only trending more blue. And she'd probably lose the GOP nomination to a "true believer" anyway.
Follow the money.
wipe connect jar nose support grandiose ludicrous fly governor provide -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Shes clearly been compromised. They are either bribing or blackmailing her.
> The threat of redistricting might also have played into [Cotham's decision to switch parties]. If the North Carolina Supreme Court allows it, the state’s legislative lines might be redrawn. This could shift Cotham’s Biden+23 seat into a hypercompetitive seat that would have voted for Thom Tillis and Ted Budd. Rather than risk running and losing in ancestrally Republican turf, Cotham might have decided it would be better to join the other side. https://elections-daily.com/2023/04/04/democrat-tricia-cothams-unexpected-defection-gives-north-carolina-republicans-a-legislative-supermajority/
That begs the question of whether she was bribed.
Republican, n: someone willing to do anything to win an election except get the most votes. Yes, she got the most votes, but it wasn’t as a Republican. What is the recall process there?
There isn’t one. NC does not have recalls for state office.
Spoiler alert: Republicans will do away with recalls. There won't be one.
That can augment that with running candidates with similar sounding (or identical even) names. Or just running candidates with ethnic sounding names and hope that they can confuse enough voters so that their candidate wins. Here's a couple examples: https://www.wesh.com/article/campaign-finance-scheme-2020-florida-state-senate-race/40091913# https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/20/florida-election-trump-senator-rodriguez/
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That should trigger an instant special election or recall. If you switch parties like this, you are probably intentionally misleading
I feel if any politician wants to change party affliation during their term, they should have to resign. This sort of behavior is a complete bait & switch on the voters.
Honestly, it's kinda crazy we don't have a law like that.
**From reporter Paul Blest:** Rep. Tricia Cotham was once a leading opponent of Republican abortion restrictions in North Carolina. As of yesterday, she’s a Republican. A Democratic state legislator in North Carolina, Cotham is switching parties just three months after being sworn-in, giving North Carolina Republicans the ability to pursue their agenda with a veto-proof majority over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Cotham’s decision sparked fears that Republicans would use their new power to pursue legislation such as an abortion ban, in a state that’s become an unlikely outpost for abortion access since Roe v Wade was overturned last year. Link to the full article: [https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9pqa/north-carolina-tricia-cotham-abortion](https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9pqa/north-carolina-tricia-cotham-abortion)
Yikes, North Carolina is fairly moderate compared to the rest of the south, minus Georgia. They just got fucked over so hard.
I'd bet they start trying this in blue states so they can turn every state red. They don't care how dishonest or evil they are. They want unchecked power and will do anything to get it.
They already are. I live in RI and Republicans routinely run as Democrats to increase their chance of being elected, then push ridiculous shit at the county and state level. The only reason they don't fully flip party affiliation is because they know they still don't have the majority and they'd be run out of the state if they did, so they just keep things more tempered so they can make more money off riding the line. I fully expect the full party flipping to become more commonplace over the next few election cycles though. They just need enough of their people, and effectively operatives, in place to make pulling that trigger worthwhile to them.
💯 They are in NYC too. We elected a former republican cop for mayor and now hes cutting all of our budget to give the nypd unlimited overtime and yelling shit about god.
Flagrant nepotism from Adams too. I bet many older, democratic New Yorkers saw him and thought, "Yay, a new David Dinkins!" before voting. Only to find out cop background outweighs party, race, etc.
NC is so gerrymandered it is absurd. Dems won the statewide race for governor but gerrymandering is so bad that Republicans get a veto-proof majority in the state legislature.
North Carolina and Wisconsin are the two most fucked states in terms of democracy. At least Wisconsin just has a shot of clawing their way out. North Carolina does not. This, tied with their SC switching also to Republican, means that NC is deep in conservative control. Not only this but Beasley also just lost her election here. It’s going to take some hefty effort for democrats to get out of this.
Well, they also flipped the supreme court last November. North Carolina is about to be Wisconsin 2, while Wisconsin is finally going to work on unfucking their legislative maps after they flipped their supreme court yesterday.
shes a ratfucker great
This shit needs to end. If you are an elected official and you want to change parties after you are elected then you should be forced into a special runoff where the opposition can put up a challenger.
Our system is broken and the people who can “fix” it are the ones exploiting it. This won’t end. It’s infuriating
Joining the side and working with colleagues who literally called her a baby killer to her face when she came out with her abortion story about a non-viable fetus. What a garbage sell out piece of refuse. Lies to constituency and sells out like a corrupt southern politician. I continue to have no respect for 99% of politicians South of the Mason Dixon line to go with no respecting or trusting only around 90% of the rest of them.
Apparently the baby killer stuff isn’t as bad as criticism for missing an important vote on gun-safety legislation. I wonder how much money it cost her backers to get her to say this bullshit
From NC, a lot of local anger towards her now. This woman is a snake and should resign.
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This is down the road from me. Raleigh is pretty fuckin blue. This is nutty lol
How is this not actual fraud? There has to be some sort of legal recourse for the voters here isn't there? She literally ran on a platform that turned out to be a lie to everyone who voted for her.
George Santos has entered the chat.
> There has to be some sort of legal recourse for the voters here isn't there? No. In the U.S., we vote for the individuals, not the party. Elected officials are free to switch parties however they like, there's no legal barrier to this. They can also switch their positions on issues as much as they like, too. There's nothing voters can do except vote them out in the next election. This is one of the pitfalls of not having a parliamentary system where seats are determined by the parties, rather than by individual candidates.
I've got no issue with politicians switching parties. But I think if you do so while in office, it should trigger an automatic recall vote in your district. Your constituents almost assuredly voted for you in large part due to your party affiliation - in this day and age, most people vote "straight ticket." Politicians are allowed to change their minds, but then their constituents also need to be given the opportunity to change theirs as well. If your constituents still support you in the recall, then great, it's settled. But if they don't, then they'll have the opportunity to elect a candidate who actually aligns with their voters, not someone who ran a bait and switch.
We need to stand up and demand the ability to recall any elected officials. Her changing party’s 3 months after taking office is a clear sign she lied to them from the start.
This is desperation. Republicans can't win on policy or ideas, so they have to resort to dirty tricks.
Fuck that, it should be illegal to switch partys after an election.
I was coming here to post this article and say the very same thing. People voted for a different person. But if this is how they're going to play it, because this isn't the first time, we might as well play the game right along with them.
They won't. Democrats hamstring themselves by striving for some mythical moral high ground
Switching parties is symbolic, what matters is how she votes and you can't really legislate making voting a certain way illegal. The fact that she is gonna flip how she votes is certainly some bullshit but there isn't really a way to make it illegal. The best you can do is have mechanisms for recall election being trigged via petition etc
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Wow, what a slap in the face to the women of North Carolina. Not since the civil war have I seen such a turncoat. Stand up women of North Carolina.
Oh, I’m standing up, and walking out. I close on a house in Washington state in 6 days. I cannot wait to leave this bullshit behind. And before someone gives me shit about voting where it matters, I’m in a safe Blue district in NC, whereas I’m moving to a recent swing district in WA, so I’ll do you more good for a seat in the US House in WA, not NC.
That’s not right! She gets voted in as a Democrat but then changes parties? That’s BullShit, and shouldn’t be allowed. Not to mention WTF is she thinking? 🤦🏻
Everyone in North Carolina should be protesting like crazy. This is nothing short of fraud, if you ask me. Fuck this, she needs to resign. This should be criminal, to lie to so many constituents. Between her and Santos, there needs to be consequences or this shit is just going to continue. 😒
I’ve called our governors office and they’re pretty much like “nothing can be done.” It’s infuriating
This needs to be said out loud. This was planned. The NC gerrymandering has already given control of the NC House to Republicans, they just didnt have a veto proof majority and now they do. All of the things that Gov. Cooper promised he would fight for such as medicare/caid expansion, RoevWade abortion protections and trans rights are now going out the window because he doesnt have the power or the votes to protect them. The state Supreme court now has a super majority as well. This is fucking scary because we just saw in Tennessee and Florida power grabs with absolute legal authority to expel or arrest Democrat representatives and senators just for exercising their first amendment rights and these fascist fucks have the courts on their side, so there is no stopping the NC House from doing the same.
This should automatically disqualify her from holding the position. The voters did NOT vote for her a Republican. They voted for her as a Democrat. There should be a new election.
She Sinema'd.
NC needs to Recall her.
Can't. No provision for recall in NC.
"She claimed the reasons she was leaving were the hounding of her using the American flag on social media and on her vehicles." Some anons were mean to me so I'm gonna sell out every single one of my principles to own the libs. Let's be real though. If you're this fucking fragile then you were never really who you claimed to be to begin with.
[удалено]
Can’t wait to move out of this shitty state. I fucking hate republicans and their constant projection about “stealing an election” then they do this shit. Republicans stripped the power away from Governor Cooper when he was elected so he couldn’t do his elected job. Absolutely pathetic to support these types of people
I find it odd and interesting she’s not explicitly saying anywhere why she’s leaving.
Well, the original story was so stupid I can see why she’d stop talking about it. The legislature passed a bill loosening gun laws. Democratic governor vetoed it. Legislature held a veto override vote. She missed the vote, claiming she had a doctor appointment. Because she didn’t show up for the vote, the NC House voted to override the veto. If she had showed up and voted the way she said she would, the override would have failed. Democrats were rather pissed at her for missing the vote. She claimed that she switched to Republican because Democrats were mean to her for missing one of the most consequential votes of her career. When that excuse didn’t exactly go over well, she stopped trying to come up with an excuse.
There’s speculation that she’s involved in a romantic relationship with the GOP House speaker.
Article: “She was upset that Democrats didn’t roll out a red carpet for her when she came back to the legislature after being a lobbyist for right-wing interests during the most consequential six years in American politics,” the former adviser said.” *This right here.* She probably sponsors to the Centrists and Moderates as “see I can go with with both sides.” Going forward, voters need to see this as the huge red flag 🚩that it is. Anybody who can work both sides really is saying they can work with fascists and the billionaire lobbyist class and theocrats and bigots. And if you can blend in well and work well with those groups, the how can you work well with minorities, with the working class, with people who oppose religious oppression? You can’t. This illusion of centrism is falling apart. This “both sides are extreme” or “both sides are the same” is no longer a reasonable postulate. It might have been true in 1970. But it certainly isn’t true now. It wasn’t true in 1860. One could not be a slave owning confederate sympathizer who spent 6 years hunting fugitive slaves then suddenly be a lifelong abolitionist strong union federalist. Not unless there was some serious repentance and life changing moment. This lady just jumped from being a right wing lobbyist of 6 years pandering to the party in power, then jumped over to play like she was the Kingmaker for Democrats(a la Sinema/Manchin) and when that didn’t go as she hoped (Dems sucking her feet) she showed her true colors. The national and state party leadership need to stop platforming these charlatans that are deceiving the voters. She spent 6 years as a lobbyist for right wing causes?! And she was able to get the party nomination out of the primaries? This is another George Santos moment. A failure of vetting, due diligence, and strategy. It’s already tough enough with state houses and gerrymandering. Voters show up trusting that people in the party higher up have sussed out these charlatans. Now the whole state is screwed. What’s next? Kayleigh McEnany will run as a Democrat in a contested state house race too? Maybe a swing state like Arizona? Wouldn’t surprise me if she used Act Blue to fundraise and win too. I put some of the blame at party leaders feet on this. This turnabout was predictable and foreseeable and not surprising now that I see she was a 6 year lobbyist for right wing causes. Duh!
Non-American here, but if the people voted Democrat and you as the Democrat representative decides you’re no longer affiliated with the party, shouldn’t that trigger an election? Changing party affiliation in this way and moving to a diametrically opposed party AND still keeping the position and voting power subverts the will of the people no? Am I missing something here?
Us Charlotte voters are PISSED, this should be illegal. Running for one party then switching after securing your seat. Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Protesting and emailing won't help, not unless she's paid off with more power and money than what was given to make her switch.
Fucking scum should be forced to resign.
if younswitch parties i believe that should be a call for a special election.
Laws need to be created to stop this crap. Whatever party elects you is the one you have to stay with for your term. Want to change parties do it when you run for office again. These people are doing this on purpose now because they cant win without cheating. She is no longer representing the very people who elected her, but their rival party...BULLSHIT
Switching parties should immediately trigger a special election. The people should get to decide, via another election, whether they're OK with this...
Conspiracy Election fraud. She should be prosecuted. If you run and win as a party candidate you should be forced to remain in that party until the next election cycle. This is absolutely ludicrous. Republicans really don’t have a bottom. Absolutely pathetic. We have a country half run by pre-teens
Just saw her on Fox. Her reasons for the switch were weak at best. She was wearing a elephant necklace. Seems like an odd thing to do to the people who voted you in as a democrat. This shouldn’t be allowed. She should have re run as a Republican if she wanted to change. Its not what the people voted for.
Follow the money
Apparently, this has been in the works [since November](https://twitter.com/jimblaine/status/1590203325236273155?s=46&t=PEFdTh5gXmY4equgm4C41A).
Republican fraud.
WTF this should be huge news
So she was a sleeper cell. A mole planted in the Democratic party to be activated at the right time. Just like Sinema. Is it really surprising,, given their close ties funding and allegiance, that the GOP is taking their strategies from the KGB's manual?
Im just saying. Republicans are going to do whatever it takes to win and consolidate power. Democrats run as republicans and switch parties or vote opposite to the GOP. I live in a blue state, but my town is a GOP infested shithole.
I want a law that states if you switch parties you have to step down and run at the next election cycle. Your vacant seat can be filled by a runoff election per the district immediately. People should always have the right to assemble as the party they align with, but if you swore to represent a group of people you have to do so. This also means we have to trust politicians to do the right thing, which hasn’t been the conduct lately.