I know that it's been over two weeks now, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge Rep. Justin Amash's departure from the GOP on July 4th (I hadn't put together until just now that it had happened on that day specifically, which of course was on purpose) to become the very rare Independent member of the US House. If I had written this article immediately after Amash's decision, I almost certainly would have spent time discussing the why's and how's of it, but as it's been two weeks, it seems that anyone who was interested in such a thing has already found that out through their own preferred news source.
No, what I'm going to focus on today is a look at the recent history of party-switching, and what exactly happened to the men who switched parties while serving in Congress. In the past 25 years, exactly eleven people (including Amash) have switched parties, either completely crossing over to the other side, or moving to be an Independent. Looking at this, we'll see if there are clues as to where Amash's career goes next, particularly if he decides to run for reelection as an Independent in 2020. We'll go chronologically from the first switch in 1994.
(Note: These are only profiling figures in the past 25 years who were sitting members of Congress when they switched parties. I'm aware people like Bobby Bright or Gene Taylor have run post their congressional tenures under different banners, but this is just people who did it while they held federal office)
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| Sen. Richard Shelby |
State: Alabama
Date of Party Switch: November 9, 1994
The Switch: Democrat to Republican
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: Senate (1987-94), House (1979-87)
Why the Party Switch?: Just a day after the Republican Revolution of 1994 (where the GOP clobbered Democrats and won both houses of Congress back), Shelby switched parties, likely seeing the writing on the wall in his home seat. After all, he'd quarreled repeatedly with Bill Clinton & Al Gore during their first term, and had seen Clinton lose his home state in 1992, as well as watched neighboring red-state Senator Jim Sasser get clobbered in Tennessee that year. Shelby, who had just turned 60 at the time, likely wanted a longer career & knew his conservative politics would work well in the GOP (and his political fortunes wouldn't suffer).
The Reelection Aftermath: It was as if it never happened. Shelby won by a nearly identical margin in 1992 to what he won by in 1998, and there was little push to claim he wasn't a "true Republican" circa 1998. He has won reelection every year since, and looking at his current voting record, it's kind of unimaginable that he was once a Democrat.
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| Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell |
State: Colorado
Date of Party Switch: March 4, 1995
The Switch: Republican to Democrat
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: Senate (1993-95), House (1987-93)
Why the Party Switch?: This kind of depends on who you ask. According to Campbell, the straw that broke the camel's back was when the balanced budget amendment he had worked on for his whole congressional career was ultimately defeated by Democrats blocking the legislation. However, Campbell was in something of a power struggle at the time with the Colorado Democratic Party, which had made him increasingly frustrated with his home state party.
The Reelection Aftermath: Campbell was able to fashion himself for the remainder of his career as a right-of-center Republican, frequently siding with the GOP but straying on issues such as abortion and the Federal Marriage Amendment. He became more conservative as he continued on in his career, but won by a large majority in 1998. He was succeeded in the (soon to be much bluer Colorado) Senate by a Democrat, Ken Salazar, and his seat has not been won by a Republican since.
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| Rep. Mike Parker |
State: Mississippi
Date of Party Switch: November 10, 1995
The Switch: Republican to Democrat
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (1989-95)
Did He Switch Caucuses: One could look at his home state of Mississippi and make the argument that Parker switched for the same reason as Shelby-a Deep South white Democrat making a jump to the Republican Party, but that's not necessarily the case. Parker's district was significantly African-American, and he likely would have been fine staying a Democrat in the seat for at least a few more years. Parker switched parties almost certainly because he had his eye on a bigger prize: the governorship.
The Reelection Aftermath: Despite the strong black presence in his district, Parker was able to win the district with ease in 1996. In 1998, however, he decided to abandon his post to focus on a run for governor in 1999, which he came darn close to winning. He was in a race where he lost by about 9000 votes, but because a quirk in Mississippi election laws, the Democrat Ronnie Musgrove wasn't able to win outright because he didn't have 50%+1 of the vote. As a result, the vote eventually went to the state legislature, which at the time was majority Democrat, and Musgrove took the victory. Parker (now 69) hasn't sought political office since, though he did serve briefly in the Bush administration. He was succeeded in the House by Ronnie Shows, a Democrat.
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| Rep. Michael Forbes |
State: New York
Date of Party Switch: July 17, 1999
The Switch: Republican to Democrat
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (1995-99)
Why the Party Switch?: Forbes might be one of the reasons that Amash didn't go entirely to the Democratic Party. The congressman, who had been ushered in during the Republican Revolution, had been a rogue Republican, frequently standing against Speaker Newt Gingrich (becoming the first member of the GOP to vote against Gingrich as leader). By 1999 he'd had it with the Republicans, and switched parties. He was quickly welcomed by President Clinton and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, but the New York Democratic Party gave him the cold shoulder, essentially stating that Forbes's longstanding pro-life beliefs were not welcome in the Democratic Party.
The Reelection Aftermath: Republicans wanted their revenge, and they got it when Regina Seltzer ran against Forbes in the 2000 Democratic primary. Despite the support of the national party, Forbes lost, in no small part due to the Republicans running ads for Seltzer in hopes of getting a weaker general election campaign (twelve years later the Democrats would pull something similar to help Claire McCaskill defeat Todd Akin). It worked-Seltzer lost to Town Supervisor Felix Grucci, who held the seat for one term before eventually losing to Tim Bishop in 2002 (one of the only two incumbent Republicans to lose reelection that year).
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| Sen. Jim Jeffords |
State: Vermont
Date of Party Switch: May 24, 2001
The Switch: Republican to Independent
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: Senate (1989-2001)
Why the Party Switch?: While we're still seeing the ramifications of Amash's party switch, it's hard to imagine a situation where it will ever approach the ramifications of Jim Jeffords in 2001. The Republicans had control of the White House, Senate, and House for the first time since 1955, but the Senate itself was a tightrope walk, since it was 50/50, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote. Harry Reid, then Democratic Whip, was actively courting Sens. John McCain, Lincoln Chafee (who would, eventually, switch parties but after his time in Congress), and Jim Jeffords, a mild-mannered old-school Republican from Vermont. Reid promised Jeffords the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, and he switched teams, thus causing the Republicans to lose their majority until the 2002 midterms.
The Reelection Aftermath: Ultimately Jeffords's impact was felt for a short while. In 2002, the Republicans netted +2 seats, more than enough to win back the Senate, and the Democrats would spend the next four years completely out of power until the 2006 midterms. Jeffords himself never stood for reelection as a Democrat, though he was oddly succeeded by an independent when then-Rep. Bernie Sanders became the de facto Democratic nominee in Vermont and has (like Jeffords) had a complicated history with the party ever since.
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| Rep. Ralph Hall |
State: Texas
Date of Party Switch: January 2, 2004
The Switch: Democrat to Republican
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (1981-2004)
Why the Party Switch?: Hall's switch was pretty much about self-preservation. With Tom DeLay having redrawn the Texas maps in a widely-criticized political maneuver to pad his party's majority, Hall would have struggled in his new district, and this allowed him to continue on in Congress (80 years old at the time, Hall had held public office as a Democrat for over 40 years). He was welcomed to the party by President Bush, a longtime friend of Hall's.
The Reelection Aftermath: For Hall, nothing-he was right in predicting he'd be welcomed with open arms by the Republican Party, though one has to wonder if Hall was so personally popular he could have outlasted even in the new district considering how well-liked he was back home. Hall got something of a comeuppance in 2014, though, when he did lose the primary to US Attorney John Ratcliffe, who ran a campaign essentially asserting that Hall was too old to still be serving. The maps did, however, did cost Texas Democrats severely in 2006 with incumbents Max Sandlin, Nick Lampson, Charlie Stenholm, & Martin Frost all losing in the general thanks to the new lines (they'd get revenge in 2006 when Lampson would beat DeLay after DeLay would be subsumed by corruption charges).
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| Rep. Rodney Alexander |
State: Louisiana
Date of Party Switch: August 6, 2004
The Switch: Democrat to Republican
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (2003-04)
Why the Party Switch?: If Republicans look at Jim Jeffords and see a swear word, then the same can almost certainly be said in reverse for Rodney Alexander, who probably was the most underhanded of the switches. After winning a very tight race for an open seat in 2002 (likely only winning thanks to Mary Landrieu's coattails in the same runoff), Alexander decided to switch parties the exact day of the filing, after having filed as a Democrat two days earlier. This meant that the Democrats had essentially no time to come up with a top-tier candidate to run against Alexander, giving the GOP a free seat gain in the 2004 House elections.
The Reelection Aftermath: Democrats derided Alexander for switching parties in the dead of night, screwing them over in the process. Landrieu, not one for hyperbole, called him a coward. But Alexander had been smart-he'd essentially made sure he had the national party's backing and didn't really have a strong candidate on either side. He cruised to reelection in 2004, and won until his bizarre resignation in 2013, where he essentially resigned for no discernible reason (there were no scandals, runs for higher office, and he was back in the public sector as a member of the Jindal administration almost exactly a year later so it wasn't a bid for a highly-paid lobbying gig). All-in-all, Alexander is one of the odder backbencher's we've seen this century.
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| Sen. Joe Lieberman |
State: Connecticut
Date of Party Switch: July 6, 2006
The Switch: Democrat to Independent
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: Senate (1989-2006)
Why the Party Switch?: Lieberman's career is long and varied enough that we could devote several articles to it, but suffice it to say it's still weird to think a man who stood as the Democratic nominee for vice president and was a presidential candidate for the party in 2004 would have such a strange close to his political career. In 2006, a relatively unknown former selectman named Ned Lamont was able to coast on liberal outrage over Lieberman's continued support of the Iraq War to win a surprise victory in the Connecticut Democratic Primary. It seemed that the man who was once just 537 votes away from being Vice President of the United States had fallen so far that he'd lost a primary to a man who couldn't even win a State Senate race just a few years earlier. Humiliated, Lieberman decided to take advantage of the Nutmeg State's lack of a sore loser law and run as an independent.
The Reelection Aftermath: Lieberman managed to rally the state's conservative base around his campaign, as well as more moderate Democrats who had supported him for decades, and won. This was largely because Lamont was not prepared (at the time) for such a major election, certainly not against a politician as seasoned as Lieberman. Lieberman went on to spend his last term supporting the Democratic majority, but as a headache for the Democratic Party, going so far as to endorse John McCain's run for the White House in 2008 (McCain even considered Lieberman for a position as his running mate before ultimately going for Sarah Palin). Knowing the Democrats would pick a more talented challenger in 2012, he didn't stand for another term and went into the private sector (to his credit, he did endorse Hillary over Trump). Lamont eventually got better at politics, and was elected governor in 2018, a weird second act for a man who was lambasted for losing such a winnable race in 2006.
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| Rep. Parker Griffith |
State: Alabama
Date of Party Switch: December 22, 2009
The Switch: Democrat to Republican
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (2009)
Why the Party Switch?: Griffith winning election in the first place was a bit of a conundrum. The 5th district had been in Democratic hands since Reconstruction, but it hadn't gone for a Democratic nominee for president since 1984, and was a ticking clock for the GOP to finally win. Griffith managed to win with John McCain taking a big victory, but he could see pretty quickly that this was going to be too tough for him to take. At the urging of the GOP, he switched parties in 2009, not even a full year into his first term as a Democrat.
The Reelection Aftermath: Republican voters sensed that Griffith's switch wasn't particularly genuine, and they sent him packing, picking Mo Brooks as the 2010 nominee not even allowing Griffith to stand for reelection as a member of his new party. Turns out they were right to be weary-in 2014, Griffith became the rare person to switch back to the other party, this time so he could be the Democratic nominee for governor, but he lost in a landslide to incumbent-Gov. Robert Bentley. No word on when he'll switch next.
Sen. Arlen Specter
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| Sen. Arlen Specter |
State: Pennsylvania
Date of Party Switch: April 28, 2009
The Switch: Republican to Democrat
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: Senate (1981-2009)
Why the Party Switch?: Speaking of guys who switched parties more than once, perhaps none were more famous for doing so than Arlen Specter. In 1965, after having just served as an assistant on the Warren Commission (Specter was one of the last living assistant counsel's on the commission), he had to switch parties to get the nomination to be Philadelphia District Attorney. In 2009, it looked like he'd face a similar struggle for his reelection bid in 2010, as after the moderate Republican bested Pat Toomey (barely) in 2004, it appeared Toomey would be able to beat him in a rematch, and so he switched parties, giving the Democrats a supermajority (once Al Franken was able to take his seat in Minnesota).
The Reelection Aftermath: While Specter's calculus that he couldn't win the GOP nomination was probably accurate, it turned out that he couldn't take the Democratic one either. Despite the support of the DSCC, Specter fell to Rep. Joe Sestak in the primary, who used Specter's decades of support for Republican politicians like George W. Bush & Dick Cheney to his advantage. Toomey had the last laugh, though, as he won the seat outright during a midterms that was very kind to the GOP. Specter wouldn't have lived through his term either way-he died less than two years later from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
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| Rep. Justin Amash |
State: Michigan
Date of Party Switch: July 4, 2019
The Switch: Republican to Independent
How Long Did He Serve in Congress Prior: House (2011-19)
Why the Party Switch?: In a word, Donald Trump. Amash has always had a libertarian streak and been a pain for Republican leadership, but it's hard to see him abandoning his post were it not for his principled stance against President Donald Trump and support for his impeachment. It's possible that Amash will spend the remainder of his term largely voting as he always had, with perhaps a bit more emphasis on his libertarianism since he doesn't have to worry about a primary challenge.
The Reelection Aftermath: It's hard to know, to be honest. I would assume that a third party challenge in a two-party system will cost him dearly. There will be people in his home district who stand by him, but with a strong Republican challenger likely to run here (and the Democrats having no incentive to back Amash considering his voting record & him not caucusing with them), I sincerely doubt he'll able to make this work. However, as you can see above, party switchers frequently find a way to stay in power after they've jumped ship.
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