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Andy McKean, right, the oldest Republican in the Iowa legislature announced Tuesday that he would become a Democrat, saying he did not want to stay in a party led by President Trump.
(AP)
The oldest Republican in the Iowa legislature announced Tuesday that he would become a Democrat, saying he did not want to stay in a party led by President Trump.
Representative Andy Mckean, 69, a retired lawyer from Anamosa Town, in eastern Iowa, said that he had made his decision after his return. in the Legislative Assembly after years of absence from politics and that the Republican Party had changed. He was a registered Republican for nearly half a century, the Washington Post reported.
At a press conference at the Iowa Statehouse in Des Moines on Tuesday, McKean said that if the president's behavior and leadership are the new normal, "I do not want to be part of it".
"Unacceptable behavior must be called for what it is and Americans from all parties should insist that the leader of their country and the free world have something much better," McKean said.
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McKean entered the House for the first time in 1979 and served seven terms. He left the legislature but returned to the Senate in 1993 and served three terms. He then won the House of Commons elections in 2016 and was re-elected in 2018. He served for nearly 29 years in the Legislative Assembly.
Upon his return, McKean said he was not in agreement with Republicans on many high profile issues, but that he declined to comment further.
McKean, who calls himself a moderate, pointed to Trump's decision on spending and what he called the president's "erratic and destabilizing" foreign policy, his environmental choices and his "disregard for the truth." .
The legislator said that as the 2020 elections approached, he thought the country would pay a heavy price for Trump's reckless spending and short-sighted financial policies.
"It gives, in my opinion, a bad example to the nation and especially to our children by personally insulting, often crudely and juvenile, those who disagree with it, being a bully at a time when we are trying to discourage it. intimidation, "said McKean of Trump.
McKean said that he would register as a Democrat when he returned home later this week and that he was planning to run for Democrats again in 2020.
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It is rare for Iowa lawmakers to change parties. The last time this happened, it was in 2007, when Dawn Pettengill's representative, from Mount Auburn, went from Democrat to Republican.
McKean is not the first legislator in Iowa to leave the party citing Trump. Former Senator David Johnson announced that he was leaving the party in 2016 as a protest to the Trump presidency, the Des Moines Register reported.
McKean's decision angered Jeff Kaufmann, president of the Republican Party.
"When the McKean representative ran in 2016, he had no problem winning the victory over President Trump," Kaufmann said. "He is about to feel the wind of President Trump's support in District 58."
Troy Price, president of the Iowa Democratic Party, welcomed McKean.
"His decision to put people above politics shows his commitment to our state," said Price about McKean.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
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