An Ohio judge has informed that she will be withdrawing from the GOP after she noticed that on a national level, the party no longer represents, nor reflects the values for which she initially joined, The Hill reported.
Judge Julie Lynch of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court has filed documents with which she notified the elections country board that she will be running as a Democrat in the future, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
“I’ve been a registered Republican since I was 18, and 41 years later I do not recognize the Republican Party as it is today,” she told the Columbus Dispatch. “And I’m not the same person I was when I was 18.”
Her filing makes it official that she will run as a Democrat next time she is up for re-election in 2023.
The judge did not share further details about what went on inside the party nor what has led to her decision.
Lynch told the local news outlet she “can’t articulate all the things that are disturbing to me, because that would not be appropriate for a judge. I’ll let my action speak louder than my words.”
While ballots for judges in Ohio do not indicate political affiliation, primaries within parties take place for Common Pleas Court judges and candidates are back by political parties, according to the Dispatch.
Ohio’s largest city of Columbus, a recent Democratic stronghold that went heavily for Hillary Clinton in 2016, is within Franklin County, and in the 2018 election Democrats won six of seven seats on the Franklin Country Common Pleas Court.
However, Lynch said the recent voting did not influence her decision to switch parties.
“That ebbs and flows,” she said. “When I started out, Republicans were dominant, but there were still Democratic judges. … I’ve always had support from Democrats and Republicans and independents.”
Several GOP state lawmakers in Kansas recently left the party and became Democrats last year, citing differences in educational policies.
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