A long, long, long time ago, when I turned 18 years old, I registered to vote as a Democrat. As time went on, I left the Democrat Party and joined the Republican Party.
Barney Bishop III is CEO of Barney Bishop Consulting, LLC, a strategic public affairs firm in Tallahassee. Barney was a lifelong Democrat and even served as the executive director of the Florida Democratic Party in 1991 – 1993. Barney wrote a column about why, after 52 years as a Democrat, he changed his registration to become a Republican. The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper published his column on 28 February 2022.
Barney stated in his column, “I’m proud to be a Republican because we believe in God and country, in that order, in law and order, we support our military and law enforcement officers, we believe that everyone can be anything they desire if they work hard enough, that the First and Second amendments are critically important values that we hold dear, that we must secure our borders, and that America is the greatest country in the history of the world.”
Recently, Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC. It is important to note that our Congressional Representatives are closest to “we the people”. Every 2 years we either let them serve us for another 2 years or we fire them (by voting). We vote every 4 years for our president and every 6 years for our Senators.
The recent “fun” (3 days of negotiations) that went on in Congress resulted in Kevin McCarthy becoming Speaker after 15 votes. This resulted in major systemic reforms to House rules changes on how the House will operate.
This “fun” is the way our republic is designed to operate (we are not a democracy). This is the way Congress should work – it may have seemed uncomfortable – but look at the results:
In recent years no bill has been modified on the floor before a vote, whereas back in 1995 – 2000, over one-half of bills were modified.
The majority of bills can now be amended on the floor before a vote.
Amendments can now be introduced to cut spending.
BTW our national debt is 31 trillion dollars. It was just half that a decade ago.
We will now have single-subject bills whereas before we had
“Christmas tree” bills where many programs and other things were added to bills.
Our representatives will now have 72 hours to read a bill before it goes to the floor for a vote.
We will now have a Congressional term limit bill introduced soon.
We will soon see a Texas Border Plan introduced.
Increases in the debt ceiling will be stopped to control frivolous spending.
All COVID mandates and all COVID funding will end.
The House will now investigate the weaponization of the FBI.
If there ever was a time to change your party affiliation on your voter registration…consider now!
Bill Snyder, Former Democrat