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Jeffords leaves GOP, blames Bush
Democrats will control
Senate committees, agenda
In announcing that he will leave the Republican Party, Vermont's Sen. Jim
Jeffords said he disagrees with President Bush on issues ranging from the
environment to abortion.
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
BURLINGTON, Vt., May 24 — In a move that reshapes the nation’s political
landscape, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced Thursday he was leaving the
Republican Party, handing Senate control to the Democrats for the first time
since 1994. Citing policy differences with President Bush and “the changing
nature of the national party,” Jeffords said he would become an independent.
PRESIDENT BUSH, speaking during a visit to Cleveland, said that
while he respected Jeffords, “respectfully, I couldn’t disagree more” with
Jeffords’ criticism of the Republican agenda in Congress.
“I was elected to get things done on behalf of the American people and
to work with both Republicans and Democrats and we’re doing just that,” Bush
said.
In his announcement, Jeffords said he would align himself with
Democrats since he differed with the president on many policies. “Looking
ahead, I can see more and more instances where I’ll disagree with the
president on very fundamental issues — the issues of choice, the direction of
the judiciary, tax and spending decisions, missile defense, energy and the
environment, and a host of other issues, large and small,” Jeffords said.
“Given the changing nature of the national party,” he added, “it has
become a struggle for the party’s leaders to deal with me and for me to deal
with them.”
His decision breaks a 50-50 tie, giving Democrats the majority they
need to take control of Senate committees. Until now, Republicans controlled
the Senate because of the tie-breaking vote wielded by Vice President Dick
Cheney.
Jeffords had planned to make his announcement in the Senate on
Wednesday but then changed his mind, delaying it until Thursday so that he
could make his decision in Vermont.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that sources close to Jeffords said the
senator also wanted to wait until after passage of the compromise Senate
tax-cut bill, which he supported. The bill passed the Senate on Wednesday and
went to a House-Senate conference committee.
Jeffords said he would make the switch formal “once the conference
report on the tax bill is sent to the president. I gave my word to the
president that I would not intercept or try to intervene in the signing of
that bill.”
Before leaving Washington, Jeffords met twice in the Capitol with
Republican leaders who tried to keep him in the GOP fold by offering a Senate
leadership role, more money for his favored education programs and a waiver
of term limits to let him remain chairman of the Education Committee beyond
the end of next year.
MCCAIN CRITICIZES PARTY
Advertisement
Bush and Cheney spoke with Jeffords earlier this week to try to keep
him in the party, and the White House had urgently contacted longtime
Jeffords’ donors and political supporters, hoping they could persuade the
senator to stay in the GOP.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a maverick who unsuccessfully fought Bush
for the GOP presidential nomination last year, on Thursday criticized
Republicans for intolerance of internal disagreement while treating Jeffords
too harshly.
“Tolerance of dissent is the hallmark of a mature party, and it is
well past time for the Republican Party to grow up,” McCain said in a written
statement.
One veteran Republican political adviser, appearing on MSNBC’s
“Hardball,” told Chris Matthews that Republicans need moderates like
Jeffords to expand their reach and get Bush into position for re-election in
2004.
“The Republican Party has to have its moderates … they have to be
listened to,” said consultant Ed Rollins. “Each senator is an independent
force.”
Jeffords, 67, has a moderate-to-liberal voting record and frequently
crossed party lines on high-profile issues, most recently Bush’s tax cut.
Jeffords supports abortion rights, votes for environmental legislation
his GOP colleagues generally oppose, favors more education spending than many
other Republicans, including Bush, and felt the $1.6 trillion tax cut sought
by Bush was too large. The Senate bill supported by Jeffords institutes a
$1.35 trillion tax cut.
BILLS, NOMINATIONS
Even as an independent, Jeffords’ move throws control of the Senate to
the Democratic Party, promoting Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota to majority
leader.
Daschle told reporters Thursday that the top two items on the
Democratic agenda will be completing a bill to revamp education programs and
pressing for new restrictions on health maintenance organizations.
He also served notice that he intends to use the Democrats’ new muscle
to force President Bush to tone down parts of his agenda. “We can’t dictate
to them, nor can they dictate to us,” Daschle said, calling for “principled
compromise” from both parties.
Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., the outgoing majority leader, said Senate
Republicans remain “unified and committed” to pushing Bush’s priorities,
including tax and spending cuts, increased defense spending and shoring up
Social Security and Medicare.
Republicans will relinquish the majority when Congress sends a final
version of its tax-cutting legislation to the president, or on June 5,
whichever is later, Lott said.
Switch in the Senate
• Latest news
• Democrats wield control
• Fineman: Presidency 101
• WP: Republican missteps
• WP: Compromise will be key
• Who is Jim Jeffords?
• Text of Jeffords' statement
As soon as the switch is formalized, Democratic committee chairmen
will decide what bills get hearings and what measures will be allowed to
reach the Senate floor. Moreover, the Bush administration will face a much
harder time getting court and agency nominations through a
Democratic-controlled Senate.
NBC’s Norah O’Donnell reported that the Senate historian said no
historical precedent exists for a party-switch that shifts the balance of
power in the Senate. “We are in uncharted waters,” said historian Don
Ritchie.
A provision in the power-sharing bill passed by senators to deal with
the 50-50 tie states that if one party gains a numerical majority, party
control will shift immediately and without a vote, O’Donnell noted.
ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE OFFERED
Democrats had quietly courted Jeffords in recent weeks, offering him
the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee, according to
sources familiar with the discussions, as well as retention of his seat on
the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.
May 24 — Vermont voters have mixed feelings about Sen. Jeffords’ actions,
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports Thursday.
Jeffords currently chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that sources on the committee said one
incident that rankled Jeffords was Sen. Lott’s refusal to let Jeffords clear
Democratic amendments on the elementary and secondary education bill that the
panel has been working on for the past five weeks.
Jeffords’ predecessor as chairman had the authority to clear all
amendments, but committee Democrats were required to submit their proposed
amendments directly to Lott’s people. Jeffords told colleagues it was
galling, Mitchell reported.
Complicating the picture were reports that Republican leaders were
reviving their effort to persuade Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., to switch parties
and recreate the 50-50 tie in the Senate, leaving the Republicans at the
levers of power. Miller has publicly said he intends to remain a Democrat.
Another target of Republican recruiters could be Sen. Ben Nelson of
Nebraska, a moderate Democrat who has occasionally been at odds with his
party’s leaders.
MAVERICK LAWMAKER
Ideologically, Jeffords is in tune with his Vermont constituents,
which means he is quite often at odds with Senate Republican leaders and with
Bush.
The president won only 41 percent of the Vermont vote last November,
while Jeffords was re-elected to a third Senate term with 65 percent.
Jeffords was the only Senate Republican to support former President
Clinton’s health care legislation in 1994, and he also supported Clinton’s
veto of Republican-backed legislation to ban certain kinds of late-pregnancy
abortions. Jeffords also voted to acquit Clinton during his 1999 Senate
impeachment trial.
Jeffords angered the White House this spring when he refused to
support Bush’s budget and its proposed $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax cut.
Instead, he sided with a bipartisan group of lawmakers who forced changes on
the Senate floor. The result was the first high-profile defeat for the new
administration.
Shortly after that, Jeffords was not invited to the White House for a
National Teacher of the Year ceremony honoring a Vermont high school
educator, a move viewed as political payback.
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