Lauren Parish, a six-term district judge in Upshur County, Texas, is leaving the Republican Party, becoming the second judge in the state to bail on the GOP in recent weeks.
In her announcement, Parish goes after the Donald Trump for making “a mockery of our country and our citizenry.” From her video announcement:
I have watched in horror as he has disavowed our military heroes, made fun of the disabled, divided our country along racial, religious and gender lines, mocked the judicial branch of government, expounded untruth after untruth, promoted violence and disrespect, boasted about sexual assault against women, and made vitriol the platform of his campaign.
In short, my family values, my Christian value, my core beliefs have been disenfranchised by my party’s nominee for president. Therefore, after much thought and deliberation I have come to the decision that it would violate my conscience to continue to be a member of the Republican Party.
The Longview News-Journal reported that Parish switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party in 2013.
Earlier this month, Terry Jennings became the only Democratic justice on the Texas First Court of Appeals after he too quit the GOP. The turning point for Jennings was in January, when he officiated a same-sex wedding and realized that he just didn’t belong in the GOP any longer.
“As the father of two daughters, and the son of a woman born before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, I am equally excited that we are about to elect our first woman president,” Jennings said in his announcement. “Too many Republicans are not. I appreciate and embrace that we are a nation of immigrants, of individuals of many different faiths and ethnicities — all one people under our Constitution — all of whom are guaranteed equal protection under the law. Too many Republicans do not.”
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Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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