In the Proud Tradition of UNO Democrats (our Secretary and Treasurer are both recently converted Republicans), formerly Republican state-wide office-holder Nebraska Auditor of Public Accounts Kate Witek changed her party registration to Democrat, and is running this fall on the Democratic ticket.

Here’s the story from the Lincoln Journal Star, take a look.

You might know Kate best as either Tom Osborne’s running mate for Governor last spring, or as the one who exposed the fraud and abuse of Loralee Byrd in the Treasurer’s office, and took that corrupt Republican down.

The way I see it (though I don’t speak for our whole group), our party is a “big-tent” party, and we welcome anyone into it who shares the ideals of a free people, equality before the law, and these days that also means progressive change. Kate isn’t the most liberal person, and I’m sure many UNO Democrats would disagree with her on a lot of issues, but we’re still proud to welcome her into our party.

Make no mistake, she’s a Democrat now, and if she doesn’t hold up her end of the bargain (you know, doing things that make Democrats proud, like advocating progressive policies instead of regressive ones, and doing a good job as auditor), then we’ll be wanting her to get the heck out of our tent.

But I for one believed when I saw her speak this last Saturday. If you weren’t there, she said that the GOP in Nebraska has lost its way, that she can find a new home in the Democratic Party, the only real party of inclusion.

And as the republican party around the country gets more and more taken over by it’s extremist right-wing, we’re going to see a lot more people like Witek renouncing their former party and asking if they can join ours. I say, come on in, the tent’s big enough and we’ve got plenty of food and drinks to go around.

Welcome to the party Kate… wanna come speak to one of our meetings sometime this fall?