State Rep. William Brisson, D-Bladen, said he is switching to the Republican Party because Democrats have become too progressive.
With Brisson’s change in party affiliation, the House Republicans increased their supermajority to a margin of 75 to 45.. He is running for his seventh term in House District 22, which covers nearly all of Bladen and Sampson counties, and a small part of Johnston County.
“I’ve always been a conservative Democrat,” Brisson said Wednesday morning. “All of my district is rural, and a lot of my constituents are. I’ve been getting a lot of pressure from my constituents in the past few years to change. I don’t have a lot in common with the Democratic Party right now because they have become so liberal.”
Brisson, a fiscal conservative, has voted often with Republicans on budget-related bills. He joined four Democrats to vote with the GOP majority on the 2017 budget, and was one of two Democrats voting to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the budget bill.
He was the only crossover vote on a House-passed, right-to-work constitutional amendment this year. The legislation died in the Senate.
He also was the only Democrat who voted this year for House Bill 56, which funded treatment and removal of chemicals like GenX discharged into the Cape Fear River. The money was allocated to the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and UNC Wilmington instead of state agencies in Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration.
In 2016 Brisson was one of 11 Democrats who joined Republicans to vote for passage of House Bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill.
The state Democratic Party did not respond to a request for comment.