Montgomery County

NORRISTOWN - While announcing a voter registration drive he hopes will bring recently departed Republicans back to the GOP, Montgomery County Republican Committee Chairman Robert Kerns took an opportunity to again invite back the party's most high-profile defector: County Commissioner Jim Matthews.

Ever since Matthews, a Republican, formed a power-sharing agreement with fellow commissioner Joe Hoeffel, a Democrat, Republican Commissioner Bruce Castor has been cut out of power, and the GOP has had trouble controlling the county agenda. The political battle has pained county Republicans.

Appearing at the county courthouse here Tuesday afternoon, Kerns said: "What Jim Matthews did is what he decided to do-we're working on bringing him back."

Asked to clarify following the brief news conference, Kerns did not point to specific efforts being made to court Matthews but said it was up to Matthews to "show that he wants to work with Bruce."

"What we're trying to show is the Republican Party is open," he said.

Montgomery County Republican Committee Chairman Robert Kerns invites recently-registered Democrats to come back to the GOP.NORRISTOWN - The Montgomery County Republican Committee on Tuesday announced a major voter registration drive, with party leaders saying they hoped longtime Republicans who had changed registration to participate in April's historic Democratic primary would return to the GOP.

Addressing reporters outside the county courthouse here, county GOP chairman Robert Kerns called on recently-registered Democrats to return to the party that, until April, had controlled the county for decades.

"We hope to bring the little elephants home," Kerns said. "It's time to come back to the Republican Party."

It's been a frustrating six months for Republican Bruce Castor. The former Montgomery County District Attorney was elected to a county commissioner's seat last year, but he had barely taken office when he found himself cut off from political power, the victim of a bipartisan power-sharing agreement between his two colleagues.

Still, even as Republican Joe Hoeffel and Democrat Jim Matthews have left Castor as the odd man out on the three-member county board, Castor has kept talking, and kept pushing his agenda, even if he lacks the power to carry it out.

His latest salvo: an appearance on the Norristown courthouse steps Tuesday where he again lambasted his fellow commissioners while presenting his own policy agenda.

"I am disappointed to say that I don't believe that we can point to any accomplishments whatsoever of any significant nature in those six months," Castor said, according to The Inquirer.

Castor was joined by more than a dozen top county Republicans, but not his fellow commissioner, The Inquirer reports.

Both Matthews and Hoeffel defended themselves against assertions that little progress had been made.

"We've done some very important things in very large areas that Bruce has either not participated in or has opposed," Hoeffel told The Inquirer.