Conservative Democrats Need Not Apply

Six years ago, 15 House Democrats were members of the Legislative Conservative Coalition. Today, just two are. Sure, a good bit of that decrease can be attributed to party-switchers, but it is also due to the fact that conservatives are simply no longer welcomed in the Mississippi Democratic Party.

In 2007, conservative Democrats faced at least two primary challenges from the left in the Senate. Nolan Mettetal barely fought off a challenge from Mona Pittman, while David Baria successfully unseated Scottie Cuevas. Today, Mettetal and Cuevas are running for office in the party that they are welcomed: the Republican Party. And you also likely remember that Gary Anderson ran to the left of George Dale, won the primary thanks to unlimited trial lawyer pockets, only to see Republican Mike Chaney win in the fall.

But probably the more famous storyline from that year was the attempted denial of certification to run as a Democrat if you didn’t pass a certain purity test. Dale, who we mentioned, was initially denied certification as were others including Jeff Smith and Mary Ann Stevens.

Smith has left for the Republican Party, but Stevens remained a Democrat. That said, the Democratic leadership had so much disdain for Stevens that they tried eliminating her district during redistricting (while shoring up virtually every other Democrat). That failed, but Bobby Moak and company were able to recruit Democratic challengers to run against her and she has apparently dropped her re-election bid after 30 years in the House.

And this isn’t just a conservative blogger talking. Bob Evans broke up the Democratic Party into two groups recently: True Democrats (like Evans) and Democrats who received high grades from BIPEC. Stevens was the last remaining conservative Democrat in the House (earning the dreaded A from BIPEC in the eyes of the Democratic Party). Randall Patterson and Mark DuVall had respectable marks from BIPEC, and of course DuVall is facing a primary challenge from Jamie Franks, but nothing to necessarily write home about.

When the House Democrats caucus after the elections this fall, there will not be a true conservative Democrat among the group (of course I don’t believe they ever let the Jeff Smith’s of the world attend a caucus meeting). It will be a group where more than 95 percent of the members received D’s or F’s from BIPEC. But the story isn’t just that conservative Democrats are heading to the conservative party, the GOP, it is that the Democratic leadership is actively driving them out.

In the House of Representatives, there is a liberal party and a conservative party. There is no in-between and there is no ideological diversity.