Guest columnist Chris Koster
After struggling with the decision for years, I recently concluded that leaving the Republican Party and joining the Democrats was the best way, perhaps the only way, for me to continue to advance the broader interests of this state as well as the progressive causes I hold dear.
I joined the Republicans in 1994 because of a guiding belief that pro-growth economic strategies provide the best course for Missouri. As the elected prosecutor of Cass County, the challenges of administering the social agenda of the far-right wing of the Republican Party never touched my day-to-day world.
However, three years in the Missouri Senate have opened my eyes to that extreme-right social agenda and the limitations it places upon so many aspects of our common lives, including limitations on lifesaving medical research, on economic development, on public health and social tolerance.
The Party of Lincoln is gone. The Party of Tolerance has become a party of intolerance. The party that freed the slaves has lost touch with our state’s African-American community, lost touch with Missouri’s poor and disabled, lost touch with the values and accomplishments of blue-collar workers across Missouri. And it’s time someone said it out loud.
My three years in the state Senate have taught me a great deal about myself and about our state. It has created a strong personal desire to turn my attention in a more progressive direction – toward championing the state’s poor and disabled communities, expansion of economic opportunity in our urban centers, and support for family-planning services. Each of these convictions flies more comfortably beneath a Democratic flag.
On so many of the critical issues of our day, it is Democrats and not Republicans who have shared my beliefs and fought by my side.
When Republicans restricted the ability of the severely injured to seek recovery against wrongdoers, I stood with Democrats against the giant insurance companies of this state. When we attempted to increase day care coverage for children of the working poor – the pre-school-aged children of single mothers earning less than $7.10/hour – I received little help from Republicans but widespread support from Democrats. And when Missouri was given the unparalleled opportunity to embrace world-class medical research institutions in pursuit of life-saving cures, I joined with Democrats to stop Republican efforts to imprison doctors and drive such medical research from our state.
The core issues I have fought for in the past are the same issues I will fight for in the future. The loyalties I have fostered, with working families and with those who hope for medical cures, are the same loyalties I will always hold dear. But I can no longer ignore that in today’s Missouri Republican Party, if you stand for these things, you stand alone.
Let me be clear: The future of Missouri belongs to the Democratic Party. If you are pro-economic development, pro-worker, pro-diversity, and pro-lifesaving cures, there is only party in which you can stand. The Republicans have abandoned the middle in order to placate the right; the Democratic Party is the party of the people.
And, while my decision has invited its fair share of controversy and skepticism, I can tell you my choice to become a Democrat was the proudest decision I have ever made in my life.
State Sen. Chris Koster is running for attorney general.