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“My decision was one of the toughest I have ever had to make politically. But as I look back over the past months, I see an administration and a national party clearly out of touch. I can no longer in good conscience affiliate myself with such actions or philosophies.”
Louisiana state Senator Norby Chabert, on why he switched parties (from Democrat to Republican) just a few months into his first term in office (soon after the BP oil spill in the Gulf occured). For the new senator, serving a coastal district where most of the jobs are tied to fishing or the oilfield, it turned everything upside down.  Right before the spill, Chabert said, “We had the lowest unemployment in the country in the middle of a recession.” After the spill, the fisheries were immediately shut down, and the moratorium instituted by the Obama administration on deepwater drilling was put into place. In the span of a few weeks, the fortunes of Louisiana’s 20th District–which consists largely of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes–were devastated.  (Chabert’s father and brother had both represented the same district as Democrats.)