The governor of our state is to announce he is changing his party affiliation. Is that ethical?

Hmmm. Good question. If he’d been in office for a long time and went from Republican to Democrat I would see the logic (even if his constituents couldn’t.)
But to run on a Democratic ticket, obviously just to get elected, then promptly switch? Sounds unethical to me.
I’ll do some checking around.

It isn’t very ethical, but it is consistent with Gov. Justice’s behavior. He was a Republican until he decided to run for Governor, and he is cozy with the White House and ran as best friend of Trump.

If and when Trump goes down in flames, let us hope he takes Justice with him.

Ethical is an opinion, I suppose. But it IS legal to do.

It depends, imo.

He’s the same dude before and after. If people voted for him based on an informed opinion about his views on issues, this shouldn’t really change things for those people. If people voted for him based on party affiliation then this probably causes them to regret their votes, but that’s a shitty way to vote anyway.

This is assuming he’s just changing his party title and not actually flipping on all his professed views on issues now that he’s in office. That’d be a shit move.

It’s not ethical as far as I’m concerned, however, your political system is different to ours. Here, we are supposed to vote for parties, not individuals. The party decides who the State Premier is or even our Prime Minister is. So in principle, we’re not voting for a particular man or woman. Of course, in reality, individual members personalities do come into play when we’re voting.

However, I do decide who to vote for based on each party’s published policy platform. So if I vote for Jim Smith and he’s standing for the Australian Labor Party and then after election he decides to switch his allegiance to the Liberal Party, I’d be seriously pissed off. It would feel like he was elected under false pretences. I think people here have resigned from specific parties and have become independents, but I’m not sure they could actually resign from one party and sign up with another. I really don’t know if that’s possible or not.

I feel that it’s unethical, but unfortunately, it is legal (as far as I know). Especially so quickly.

Oooh, look at the “Related” Q, @chyna!

@canidmajor Wow, I had forgotten about that one. Seems to be a thing in my state.

It sucks. I would be mad as hell.
But at least you have the next election.
Why is everybody in such a hurry?
You only have to wait until 2020.
Unless you are 85 years old, what’s the problem.

I don’t think it’s a speed thing @josie, it’s a breach of faith. And yes, people can wait until the next election but in the meantime, the person elected to support particular policies or to represent you when voting when key issues come up, is not in your corner. They have now come out of the closet and said ‘actually, I support these policies’ or ‘this is actually my attitude and preference on this topic’. So when health policy is debated and voted on, the person you thought you had in your corner, is potentially voting for the other side.

That’s important now, not in 2020 and especially given what’s going on in your country.

@Earthbound_Misfit
Thanks, but…
Like I said, it sucks. And I would be mad.
Do I sound like I need clarification?

I saw that, but then you said people can just wait for the next election and everyone was in a hurry. Sounded like you were suggesting getting upset about it was an overreaction and people should just bide their time.

@Earthbound_Misfit
What else can they do?

It’s a common enough practice that the ethical questions are moot.

@josie, I suppose you could lobby for a change in legislation to prevent someone from formally changing party allegiance once they’ve been elected. If you stand for government suggesting you support a particular policy platform, any significant departure from that stance would seem to be a breach of contract. You were elected because your constituents believed you were going to lobby for particular legislation etc. You’re not going to do that anymore.

Is there no way to insist on a by-election? Do you have by-elections there?

Beyond that, I’d definitely write to my local parliamentarian and express my disgust at their change.

I would hope that if organizations endorsed him (organizations like labor unions), and he promised to help them out, he would keep his promise. It’s a really shitty move, no matter what, but the least he could do is stick with his original platform.

As long as he isn’t drastically changing his position on issues it probably isn’t any more unethical than running under a party name when it’s pretty obvious the party isn’t a great fit.

Bloomberg ran as a republican when he ran for Mayor the first time (maybe the second and third also, I don’t remember) and everyone knew he wasn’t really really a republican.

It’s pretty crappy to change parties right after being elected. That’s a reason not to just vote for someone because of their party affiliation.

I read in the paper this morning that his whole staff was caught off guard.

@chyna Wow. Is he changing his plan of action?

His Wikipedia page says he was a republican until 2015. Were the Democrats lacking a candidate for governor? That would explain his switch.

He promised to open the coal mines back up. He lied.

I don’t know much about coal mines, but according to most Democrats, and I just saw Al Gore say this on CNN, coal mining jobs are for the most part not coming back. Gore said for years now a lot of the work is done by automation, and that coal is less and less the favored fuel. If this is true, eventually coal miners will believe it, even when people lie.

I just went on a coal mine tour in PA and I learned what @JLeslie just said. The jobs and the way of life are not coming back. If you look on FB sites about coal mining, there seems to be a lot of nostalgia for that way of life, but it was hard work and dangerous work. Now it’s done by dynamite.

^^ I’m not sure the nostalgia is for the actual coal mining work. It’s a nostalgia for the jobs that paid well. While I’m sure miners have a camaraderie and that in some areas, being a miner is an important part of their identity, the work is hard and dangerous and dirty. Miners in Australia are still coming down with deadly lung diseases. However, coal mining drove whole towns and regional areas and really, nothing has replaced the jobs lost when mines closed. People didn’t have other work to go to and they haven’t had the luxury, time and opportunity to retrain. So those who had become comfortably well-off because of the work they did, now have no work. Of course, I’m talking about miners in countries like the UK, or the US or Australia or New Zealand, in some countries, miners are still paid a pittance and work under dreadful conditions. I can totally understand how those who were once financially very well-off are now wishing those days would return.

The lack of alternative industry and opportunities to retrain is something governments could have improved with more forethought. Instead of promising to open coal mines, and we have the same problem here, with the promise of jobs, why can’t our governments look at other industries that could be established in those areas. Renewable energy options would be a good place to look.