San Diego Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher quits GOP
Source: The Los Angeles Times
Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a third-term Republican who is running for mayor of San Diego, announced this week he is leaving the GOP and re-registering as an independent.
The move comes just more than two months before the San Diego mayoral vote, a nonpartisan office. It also deals another blow to a state Republican Party that holds no statewide offices, has faced declining numbers in Sacramento for the last decade and has a depleted stable of potential candidates to challenge Democrats for higher office.
Fletcher, a lifelong Republican and former Marine, has been at odds with his party over the rights of gays to serve in the military, among other issues. Last year, he struck a deal with Assembly Democrats and Gov. Jerry Brown to make a change in state corporate tax formulas opposed by the Republican leadership.
His party shift is also a nod to the state’s new election rules, which diminish the importance of party affiliation. Instead of the top vote-getter in each party advancing to a fall run-off for legislative, congressional or statewide offices, the top two finishers, regardless of party, will face off head-to-head.
Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/03/san-diego-assemblyman-nathan-fletcher-quits-gop.html
Another person breaks free of the dark side.
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