A Man of Honor

A Statement

-Senator James M. Jeffords - Burlington, Vermont: May 24, 2001

Anyone who knows me, knows I love the State of Vermont.

It has always been known for its independence and social conscience. It was the first state to outlaw slavery in its constitution. It proudly elected Matthew Lyon to Congress, despite his flouting of the Sedition Act. It sacrificed a higher share of its sons to the Civil War than perhaps any other state in the Union.

I recall Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders' dramatic statement almost 50 years ago, helping to bring to a close the McCarthy hearings, a sorry chapter in our history. Today's chapter is of much smaller consequence, but I think it appropriate that I share my thoughts with my fellow Vermonters.

For the past several weeks, I have been struggling with a very difficult decision. It is difficult on a personal level, but it is even more difficult because of its larger impact on the Senate and the nation.

I've been talking with my family, and a few close advisors, about whether or not I should remain a Republican. I do not approach this question lightly. I have spent a lifetime in the Republican Party, and served for 12 years in what I believe is the longest continuously held Republican seat in the U.S. Senate. I ran for re-election as a Republican just last fall, and had no thoughts whatsoever then about changing parties.

The party I grew up in was the party of George Aiken, Ernest Gibson, Ralph Flanders, and Bob Stafford. These names may not mean much today outside Vermont. But each served Vermont as a Republican Senator in the 20th century.

I became a Republican not because I was born into the party but because of the kind of fundamental principles that these and many other Republicans stood for moderation, tolerance, and fiscal responsibility. Their party our party was the party of Lincoln.

To be sure, we had our differences in the Vermont Republican Party. But even our more conservative leaders were in many ways progressive. Our former governor, Deane Davis, championed Act 250, which preserved our environmental heritage. And Vermont's Calvin Coolidge, our nation's 30th president, could point with pride to our state's willingness to sacrifice in the service of others.

Aiken and Gibson and Flanders and Stafford were all Republicans. But they were Vermonters first. They spoke their minds – often to the dismay of their party leaders – and did their best to guide the party in the direction of our fundamental principles.

For 26 years in Washington, first in the House of Representatives and now in the Senate, I have tried to do the same. But I can no longer do so.

Increasingly, I find myself in disagreement with my party. I understand that many people are more conservative than I am, and they form the Republican Party. Given the changing nature of the national party, it has become a struggle for our leaders to deal with me, and for me to deal with them.

Indeed, the party's electoral success has underscored the dilemma I face within my party.

In the past, without the presidency, the various wings of the Republican Party in Congress have had some freedom to argue and ultimately to shape the party's agenda. The election of President Bush changed that dramatically. We don't live in a parliamentary system, but it is only natural to expect that people such as myself, who have been honored with positions of leadership, will largely support the president's agenda.

And yet, more and more, I find I cannot. Those who don't know me may have thought I took pleasure in resisting the president's budget, or that I enjoyed the limelight. Nothing could be further from the truth. I had serious, substantive reservations about that budget, and the decisions it sets in place for today and the future.

Looking ahead, I can see more and more instances where I will 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.

The largest for me is education. I come from the state of Justin Smith Morrill, a U.S. Senator who gave America the land grant college system. His Republican Party stood for opportunity for all, for opening the doors of public school education to every American child. Now, for some, success seems to be measured by the number of students moved out of public schools.

In order to best represent my state of Vermont, my own conscience, and the principles I have stood for my whole life, I will leave the Republican Party and become an Independent. Control of the Senate will soon be changed by my decision. I will make this change and will caucus with the Democrats for organizational purposes, once the conference report on the tax bill is sent to the President.

My colleagues, many of them my friends for years, may find it difficult in their hearts to befriend me any longer. Many of my supporters will be disappointed, and some of my staffers will see their lives upended. I regret this very much. Having made my decision, the weight that has been lifted from my shoulders now hangs on my heart.

But I was not elected to this office to be something that I am not. This comes as no surprise to Vermonters, because independence is the Vermont way. My friends back home have supported and encouraged my independence even when they did not agree with my decisions. I appreciate the support they have shown when they have agreed with me, and their patience when they have not. I will ask for that support and patience again, which I understand will be difficult for a number of my friends.

I have informed President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Senator Lott of my decision. They are good people with whom I disagree. They have been fair and decent to me. I have also informed Senator Daschle of my decision. Three of these four men disagreed with my decision, but I hope each understood my reasons. And it is entirely possible that the fourth may well have second thoughts down the road.

I have changed my party label, but I have not changed my beliefs. Indeed, my decision is about affirming the principles that have shaped my career. I hope the people of Vermont will understand it. I hope, in time, that my colleagues will as well. I am confident that it is the right decision.

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A Man of Honor

-zaphod2001: May 24, 2001

This is the single greatest act of pure political courage that I have witnessed in the last 20 years. This took some serious guts. It's one thing to get angry enough with your party to leave it, it's another to be so fed up that you're willing to shift the entire power structure in the most powerful nation on earth.

Honestly, I don't know how Jeffords stood it this long. He's been a consistent voice for the moderates in the Senate since 1967. I mean, just the fact that he's pro-abortion rights must have made stomaching the ultra-right, overtly religious brow-beating 1980's hard enough.

But Jeffords has done things like act as one of the principle sponsors of the ENDA or Employment Non-Discrimination Act and made statements like, "ENDA will achieve equal rights–not 'special rights'-- for gays and lesbians." He has also patrnered with Democrats on the other side of the aislesuch as Senator Kennedy to help working families and combat poverty in America by voting for an increase in the minimum wage. He has said in position papers, "I believe that the time has come to raise the minimum wage again and that a $1.00 an hour increase over the next two years is not only warranted, it is necessary." He also also sponsored the Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 1999 which was intended to foster local partnerships between nonprofits, state and local governments, and private landlords to keep existing projects available for low income tenants. The legislation's objective was to preserve existing low income projects, and increase the units to expand a tight housing marketplace through new acquisition and rehabilitation. He also fought for funding for the arts when other members of his party were bent on destroying the arts in this country out of some knee-jerk religious fanaticism that rivaled that of the Inquisition.

After selling out our country's future with crippling debts during the 80's, and over the last 30 years continually making such horrendously stupid decisions that would make anyone with a brain want to claw their eyes out, sticking with the Republican party wasn't even an option - Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Quayle, Bush II: The return - it just got progressively stupider. An intelligent man such as Jeffords was left with no choice but to do what he did. And he chose to do it at the time when it would have the most impact on his old party. This was an obvious attempt as he walked out the door to impart one last lesson, hoping they would hear it.

And you know they got him in the old smoke-filled room and tried to guilt-trip him to death, but he was way too far gone. His openly scathing words against Bush and the ultra-right during his press conference to his constituency demonstrate not just how much they had ignored this man's very valid concerns, but how far the Republican Party had drifted from any semblance of moderation. I applaud his courage. Way to be a statesman, not just a politician.

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The Republicans Blackballed Jeffords

-Richard Reeves: May 25, 2001

Be aware of the curse of getting what you wish for.

Look at the Republicans in this excited town. The Republicans who came to the White House four months ago with President Bush (news - web sites), and returning members of Congress who cheered him through the gates, wanted two things above all:

1. To cut the size and role of government;

2. To drive the liberal "squishes" out of their party.

It seems they've gotten their wishes. The Bush tax cuts, whether the total amount adds up to $1.6 trillion or $1.35 trillion, are about to be voted into law. The Republicans smartly used talk of recession to cut government off at the knees. The reductions over 10 years were designed to outlive their control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

The real goal of the tax-cutting is not to stimulate the economy, which would be nice, but to scale back the size and power of government by cutting off the oxygen of tax revenues. The tax cut was an ideological goal. The effect will be to reduce non-defense government spending to its lowest level since World War II.

Driving out the liberals was personal. The leaders of this wave of Republican conservatism are zealots. They simply could not stand seeing, hearing or being in the room with colleagues they considered traitors inside the party. It was only a month ago that I found myself writing happily about this odd resurgence of liberal Republicans. The "squishes," conservatives called them, or "the weak sisters" or "the RINOS" -- Republicans In Name Only.

The resurgence was odd not because there were hordes of lefties masquerading as Republicans. It happened because the Republicans who came to power this year had moved so far right that moderates like the suddenly famous Sen. James Jeffords looked like Marxists to the Bushmen in the White House, Trent Lott in the Senate, and Tom DeLay and Dick Armey in the House.

Now Jeffords has switched sides, almost, with a manner that echoes Josiah Bartlett in "The West Wing" television series. He will list himself as an independent rather than a Democrat, but will side with the Democrats in organizing the Senate -- and demoting Lott from majority leader to minority leader. But even with the party paying a high price for purity, many Republicans are more than willing to pay it -- cutting off their own noses for spite -- to avoid having lunch with people they despise.

One down, a dozen to go. The other names on the conservative hit list now include: Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio; and Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, Rep. Amory Houghton of New York, Rep. Jim Greenwood of Pennsylvania, Rep. Nancy Johnson of Connecticut and Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan. The list may include Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut and even Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

They have been characterized this way by Pete DuPont, who has moved from being a conservative presidential candidate to conservative radio commentator: "Most are pro-racial preference and pro-minimum wage increases. And on two core issues of individual liberty, school choice and the free-speech limitations of campaign spending 'reform,' they're hopeless. They're big government people ..."

The Jeffords defection will not only change the way the Senate operates -- for the moment, at least, we have divided government again -- it also could and should mark the end of the president's "mandate." Bush has for these four months managed to get away with pretending the nation is solidly behind him, even if the majority of the nation's voters cast their ballots for the other guy.

Sen. Snowe responded to last Thursday's events by saying it shows that the party has to pay attention to its own small minority of moderates or liberals. But McCain's reaction seemed more telling to me: "Tolerance of dissent is the hallmark of a mature party, and it is well past the time for the Republican Party to grow up."

That is certainly true, but it may miss the point. The Republicans don't want to grow up, and the bunch in power now are not really a party, mature or otherwise. The Republicans are a club, and they reserve the right to refuse admittance.

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Here is the Real Betrayer

-Robert Scheer: May 26, 2001

The lessons of James M. Jeffords' defection are devastatingly clear: One cannot be both a moderate and remain a Republican senator.

The party of Lincoln through Eisenhower has been captured by the Trent Lotts and Jesse Helms', and the promised big tent for the GOP has been shrunk to fit the proportions of a Southern religious revival meeting.

The defection is regional; the once-Republican Northeast is now solidly Democratic, offering further proof of the profound realignment in this nation's politics. The Republican Party has been captured by the right wing and is no longer a fit home for moderates.

As Jeffords put it: "I became a Republican because of the kind of fundamental principles that many Republicans stood for: moderation, tolerance, fiscal responsibility. Their party -- our party -- was the party of Lincoln."

Thanks to the legacy of Lincoln, the moderates of the North, particularly in the East, formed the base of the Republican Party, while the South solidified as the home of racist, pro-segregation whites who voted solidly Democratic. Then came Richard M. Nixon and his "Southern strategy" of snubbing black Republican voters -- who were then a force in the GOP -- and actively wooing the anti-civil rights Southern white Democrats. This realignment is best summarized by Strom Thurmond's jump from the Democratic to the Republican side of the Senate aisle, and good riddance. But the result has been to deprive the large bloc of Southern black voters of representation in the Senate.

That Dixiecrat Thurmond could join with the reactionaries and find a home in the GOP is just the reason Jeffords no longer can.

The good news is that the country as a whole is moderate in outlook, and that the will of the majority of voters in the last presidential election will now be represented in at least one branch of government to challenge the right wing's control of the House, the presidency and the Supreme Court.

Most Americans will welcome the check that the Senate can now put on the Bush administration's initiatives to further spoil the environment and erode a woman's choice, not to mention the White House's impending assault on the independence of the judiciary. This last is likely the most important battle of all, and the Democrats' control of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) will make all the difference in confirmation battles for federal judges, from the Supreme Court on down.

Consider Bush's inexcusable elimination of the time-honored role of the American Bar Association in the nomination of judges, instead substituting the rabidly right-wing Federalist Society. Imagine the outrage if a Democratic president had declared that he would go first to the American Civil Liberties Union for an "objective" appraisal of a potential judge's professional qualifications.

To understand the betrayal by Republican leaders of the progressive history of their party, particularly on the obligation of the federal government to expansively support civil rights, equality of opportunity and personal liberty, one need only remember that it was that popular Republican governor of California, Earl Warren, who led the Supreme Court through the era of enlightenment that the current court is obsessively reversing.

Jeffords fits comfortably in the Warren-Eisenhower tradition of progressive Republicans. It is of more than symbolic importance that the White House sought to punish his resistance to a tax cut for the super-rich by cutting a program that Jeffords had long supported, which was to provide federal aid for schoolchildren who benefit from special education programs. That was an act of meanness and stupidity unbefitting a president who campaigned as a compassionate unifier.

The signs are unmistakable that the Bush-Cheney administration is bent on being the most reactionary in modern history and that a true moderate must stand in opposition.

"Looking ahead," Jeffords said, "I can see more and more instances where I'll disagree with the president on very fundamental issues."

It is not Jeffords but rather Bush who has betrayed the once-honorable legacy of the Republican Party.