St. Martinville Lawmaker Switches To GOP
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A St. Martin Parish lawmaker has become the latest in the Louisiana Legislature to defect from the Democratic Party and join the GOP.
State Rep. Fred Mills, a pharmacist from St. Martinville, is in his first term at the state House and is planning to run for a vacant state Senate seat in a special January election against Republican state Rep. Simone Champagne of Jeanerette.
His party switch was confirmed to The Times-Picayune by Louisiana Republican Party spokesman Aaron Baer and aides to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Adding Mills to the House GOP Caucus boosts its membership to 52, putting the party within one vote of a 53-member majority in the chamber for the first time since Reconstruction.
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