Party priorities: What divides Branick, Lampson
Published 9:50 am Monday, October 22, 2018
By Chris Moore
chris.moore@panews.com
Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick’s bid the Democrats goodbye due to a shift in party priorities. In a letter to supporters in early 2017, he told them he was becoming a Republican because he didn’t think climate change should be a front-burner issue for the county, but that international terrorism presented a “clear and present danger.”
That might have been low-hanging fruit as a campaign angle for Branick’s Democratic challenger, Nick Lampson, in the Nov. 6 General Election, but the affable former congressman has not mentioned it on the campaign trail. Lampson said he is surprised that the news media and those who run the public forums have not mentioned the judge’s decision to part ways with the Democrats.
“I have not tried to attack (Branick),” he said. “I assumed somebody would be asking those questions along the way and no one has. It has not come up one time in any of the forums. It’s not been a conscientious effort on my part. I Just assumed it would be.”
Branick said the national rhetoric at that time didn’t have much influence on his decision.
“My main reason for switching was that I’m a fiscal conservative,” Branick said. “I was really, really concerned about the amount of the national debt and what impact that would have on my children and grandchildren.
“I never believed socialized medicine was a good idea. I believe that people should have good medical care, but socialized medical care hasn’t really worked well in other countries.”
Branick said the Democratic Party began to attract a lot socialists, too.
In Branick’s letter, he wrote that he originally wrote a longer version that he wanted to release in October before a friend asked him to wait 90 days before releasing it.
“I don’t know what his thought process was,” he said. “It was somebody I liked and respected and it couldn’t hurt. I never did ask him what his thought process was.”
Lampson said some of his Democratic friends said they were offended by some of the language used in Branick’s letter.
“It was confusing,” Lampson said of Branick’s letter. “We don’t know why it was he did what he did. It doesn’t particularly bother me. I’m not opposed to people working with or pairing with people of opposing parties.”
Branick said he believes in being able to have political relationships in both parties.
“We can disagree without being disagreeable,” he said. “We don’t have to be hateful or disruptive. I think that I have been a stable influence on the court. I certainly believe in listening to everyone and giving everyone an opportunity to be heard and using logic and reasoning to lay out their case for what their position is.”
Branick’s announcement came just a few months after the election of President Donald Trump, but the county judge said the president’s election influenced his decision not “whatsoever.”
“It was more economics and the national debt,” he said.
Lampson said he continues to support the Democratic Party because he believes in how the party views taxes.
“When I first went to Congress, the marriage tax penalty that was being paid by so many couples was put forth in Congress that had a Republican-controlled leadership. They were designed in such a way (that) it benefited people that were making disproportional amounts of money. Someone who made a high salary and a low salary, if there was any salary at all for the second partner — the fix went to those people, as opposed to the people who were making closer to equal pay.
“In other words, the families that were struggling to make ends meet with both partners working, in some cases multiple jobs — those were the ones I thought we were trying to get help to.”
Lampson said most of the money that was allocated by the Republican Party in Washington went to couples that had a high salary and no salary at all.
“Those families were not struggling in my mind,” Lampson said. “That seems where the tax policy of the Republican Party tends to go. I have always supported what my father referred to as the ‘little people.’”
Lampson said he believes in working with members of the Republican Party and said he has the track record to prove it.
“I helped create the Center Aisle Caucus in the House of Representatives,” Lampson said. “Years of my work have been dedicated to reach across the party line.
“To get into it, if you were a Democrat, you had to bring with you a Republican partner. If you were Republican, you had to bring a Democratic partner. Our premise was to promote civility and the search for common ground.”