Federalist is selected by default simply because it's the first one on the list. The AI will pick their own party regardless of what party you selected when you last played that race; you can see which ones they're using in the foreign policy screen.

In DA, you can override their option to choose when you customize opponents, but if you don't specify anything there yourself, they'll continue to pick on their own.

New Bugs in that I got in Gal Civ2
1. I now have a new problem, my space stations before I construct them dont show in the view window so you can see what each one looks like. its just the space background with no station visible, the station is visible on the game itself just not in the Construction window.
2.I also am having a hard time getting my fleets to set a point long range. like I can get them to move like 1 or 2 weeks/ps but even if they have like 8 to 10 moves they can do, I cant get the fleet to move long range I have to do small increments with the fleet in order to get them to move.
3.I just preordered TA as well so was wondering how I get into the beta that is going on so I can see some of the new improvements. I already have DA.