Black Michigan Democrat to Join GOP : High Official Expected to Challenge Governor After Party Switch

In a political coup for the Republican Party, William Lucas, chief executive of Wayne County and one of Michigan’s most prominent black Democrats, will announce here today that he is switching parties and becoming the highest-ranking black Republican elected official in the nation.

Lucas, who has been heavily courted by Republican leaders eager to attract more black voters, is also expected to announce soon that he will seek the Republican nomination for governor of Michigan in order to run against the incumbent Democrat, Gov. James J. Blanchard, in 1986.

On Tuesday, Lucas met here with Vice President George Bush to discuss his decision. He plans to meet with President Reagan at the White House next week.

A former FBI agent and Justice Department official under Robert F. Kennedy, Lucas, 57, said in an interview Tuesday that he decided to become a Republican because “over the past several years I have been drifting very gradually into the philosophical approach” advocated by the Republican Party. “It was obvious to me that I was in the wrong parade.”

Conservative Viewpoint

A conservative, he has said that he is troubled by the use of racial quotas in hiring decisions, supports a private sector approach to the economic problems facing blacks, and believes that blacks as well as whites are tired of big-spending politicians.

“I don’t want to come off as an apologist for the Reagan Administration,” he said. “But I’m not inclined to discredit President Reagan’s programs at all.”

His proposed switch in allegiance has become the number one political issue in Michigan. Republicans predict that he will mount a formidable challenge to Blanchard by appealing to both rural white Republicans and inner-city black Democrats.

Larry Dillard, black political liaison to the Republican National Committee in Washington who said that Lucas would become the GOP’s highest-ranking black elected official, added: “I think it is another example that the black community is not monolithic.”

Democrats’ Response

Democrats, however, dismissed Lucas’ chances of convincing blacks to vote Republican. Gary Owen, the Democratic Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, predicted Tuesday that Lucas will never win another political campaign. Rick Wiener, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, called Lucas an “opportunist” and said he is switching only because all top statewide offices are held by Democrats and there is no room for him to advance.

Lucas acknowledged that his move is risky because the black community is overwhelmingly Democratic. “There are going to be those who question my racial loyalty,” he said. But he said that in interviews with black and white voters around the state he had found a growing acceptance of his proposal to switch parties.

Lucas said other black leaders, whom he did not identify, have privately expressed an interest in following him into the Republican camp. “A lot of them are concerned that they will be considered traitors,” he said.

He said also that his experience in running Michigan’s most populous county, and his subsequent rift with the state’s leading Democrats, had played a role in his decision to switch parties.

Served as Sheriff

After serving as sheriff of Wayne County (which includes Detroit and many of its suburbs), Lucas was elected county executive in a landslide in 1982 with the support of both white suburbanites and Detroit blacks. Taking office in the midst of Michigan’s severe economic slump, he became controversial as an advocate of fiscal austerity and quickly found himself at odds with such Democratic leaders as Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young, Michigan’s most powerful black politician.

“I was not supported by elements of the party or by the unions. . . . Once that happened, and once I was criticized by the Democratic Party, and they said your policies are Republican policies, that of course was astounding to me. So I had obviously split with the party, and that’s when it began,” he said.