Former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis has turned in his Democratic Party card as he prepares to register for the GOP in Virginia.
The switch was rumored for some time following his departure from Democratic politics in 2010. Davis left political circles after his unsuccessful run for governor in Alabama. He lost in the 2010 primaries, and generating hostility from some fellow Democrats who disliked his effort to avoid identity politics.
The winning Democrat was trounced by the Republican candidate in the general election.
“If I were to run [for office], it would be as a Republican … [because] wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” Davis announced Tuesday on his blog.
“I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia … [and] it is true that people whose judgment I value have asked me to weigh the prospect of running in one of the Northern Virginia congressional districts in 2014 or 2016, or alternatively, for a seat in the Virginia legislature in 2015,” Davis wrote.
He declined to predict when — or if — he might jump into a GOP primary race, but sketched out his political priorities.
“I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes. … I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured,” he wrote.
“[F]aith institutions should not be compelled to violate their teachings because faith is a freedom. … [T]he law can’t continue to favor one race over another in offering hard-earned slots in colleges.”
In recent interviews with The Daily Caller, Davis said Democratic party machines in Alabama use voter fraud to stay in power, that Democratic voters are split over immigration, that majority-minority districts disadvantage African-Americans and that GOP voters are more open to advancement by minority politicians.
In February, Davis quit his job at a Washington, D.C. law-firm, SNR Denton, to take a fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. He represented Alabama’s Seventh Congressional District from 2003 to 2010.