Jim Jeffords
Jonathan Zasloff reminds us of the case of Jim Jeffords:
Jeffords threatened to leave the caucus, giving the Democrats control over the Senate, unless Bush acceeded to his demand for greater special education funding (which Bush had promised and remains the right thing to do).
Obviously, the Bush people were livid. It was Cheney who persuaded the President not to back down, and the result was Jeffords bolting to the Democrats. Like so much else about Cheney, his advice was bad. Had 9/11 not occurred, it could have kept Bush from unified control of Congress for the remainder of his term.
But the interesting position, as Gellman describes it, was taken by Karl Rove, who said something to the effect of: “give him what he wants now, and then we will screw him at a more opportune time.” What Rove meant by that, or what he was thinking, is not mentioned, mainly because it became moot.
But it might be worth thinking about ahead of time if, as I fear, Lieberman stays off the reservation.
Another aspect of the Jeffords story that may be relevant is that when Jeffords switched parties he didn’t do what you might have expected a moderate Republican to do and become a moderate Democrat. Instead he became a liberal Democrat, wracking up Voteview scores in the 108th and 109th Senates that put him in the leftmost third of the Democratic caucus. Which is perhaps what you would expect from a Democrat from Vermont, but also represented a very dramatic shift in Jeffords’ voting record for which he never offered a real public explanation.
40 Responses to “Jim Jeffords”
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November 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Considering what Vermont is like politically, it seems like a smart move. We’ll see if Democrats in DC do like Republicans did to Sen. Bob Smith(R-NH). How do you think John Sununu(who just recently lost his bid for re-election) became the Republican nominee in 2002? We’ll see if the Democrats support HoJo or the Democratic nominee in 2012.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
What Rove meant by that, or what he was thinking, is not mentioned, mainly because it became moot.
But it might be worth thinking about ahead of time if, as I fear, Lieberman stays off the reservation.
Barack Obama is not Karl Rove.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Jim Jeffords was pretty much political scum, leaving for lack of Vermont pork. Rove may have been right that it would’ve been better to wait and screw him at a more opportune time, but I can’t say that he took any great principled stance. At least Lieberman only votes with the GOP on security issues.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Jeffords didn’t campaign for the opposition party presidential campaign, speaking at the opposition party convention in the process.
While we’re focused on procedural protocol, we’ve kept as Homeland Security chairman who is an unabashed neo-imperialist who leads the militaristic policy view for the Middle East. But that shouldn’t surprise when you have a president-elect who proposes increasing the military by 100,000.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The reason for the leftward shift in voting record is likely that many of his more conservative votes were on issues he did not care about enough to buck his party. There is always a careful balancing act of standing up for your core beliefs while also voting with your party often enough to have influence in the caucus. One would expect a change of caucus to have significant impact on a voting record because a different constituency needs to be pleased.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Jim Jeffords was pretty much political scum, leaving for lack of Vermont pork. Rove may have been right that it would’ve been better to wait and screw him at a more opportune time, but I can’t say that he took any great principled stance. At least Lieberman only votes with the GOP on security issues.
This is ridiculous. (Disclaimer: Vermonter here, FWIW.) Jeffords’ main stated reason for leaving was opposition to an unfunded mandate in a federal law which affected the whole country in addition to just Vermont, and he had long-standing, well-documented differences with the Republican Party on other issues as well, differences which were only getting worse.
If you want to whine about him switching in the middle of a term, that’s one thing, but it’s extremely ignorant, if not simply lying, to claim that leaving the Republican Party was an unprincipled act for him.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I nominate spite.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
If I recall correctly, one of the conditions of Jeffords switching and getting a committee chair after the switch was that Daschle owned him on procedural votes. Could that have had something to do with his changed rating?
November 19th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I think you’d have to look at those votes in detail to decide
whether there was really a dramatic shift. Given the vast
ideological gap between the centrist Clinton administration and
the extreme-right Bush/Cheney gang, it’s pretty easy to imagine
that you could vote against Clinton’s agenda as being too left-
wing, but then also vote against Bush’s agenda as being too right-wing … Anyhow, given the undeniable rightward lurch
of the Republican party, Jefford’s switch is much more
defensible than Lieberman’s. And he didn’t go on the campaign
trail against his own party’s candidates – in fact IIRC he even
delayed his switch to guarantee passage of Bush’s first tax
cut package.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
“give him what he wants now, and then we will screw him at a more opportune time.”
Here’s the distinction as I see it. If the Democrats want to screw Lieberman there is no more opportune time than right now.
Lieberman’s own constituents don’t like him. The GOP, as a whole, is cool on him (or he would have been the V.P. pick). And Obama is riding a giant wave of popular good will that would hardly be diminished by a swift decision to strip Lieberman of his committee chair.
No, the Dems failed to punish Lieberman because they (a) like him, (b) dislike liberals, and (c) lack any self-respect. No “revenge is a dish best served cold” calculating here.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
“Jefford’s switch is much more
defensible than Lieberman’s.”
This is what people don’t get. It’s a violation of loyaty to party, rather than ideology. Jeffords didn’t try to keep one foot in the party and one foot out. He switched. There are moderate and conservative Democrats and they have as much right to their views as do the liberals in the party. What they don’t have a right to do is trash the party and its candidates and then get rewarded for being in the caucus. Why not give Susan Collins or Arlen Spector some nice committee chairs, if it’s mainly about voting with the Democrats?
November 19th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Obama’s assessment of the Lieberman situation probably revolved around certain facts:
1 – Obama is apparently not vindictive.
2 – Lieberman is going to be around until at least 2010.
3 – Like it or not, Lieberman has (had) the use of a bully-pulpit as a result of his campaigning for a friend from “across-the-aisle.”
4 – If Obama intervened to save Lieberman’s chairmanship, it would show Obama in a forgiving light and reduce Lieberman to the level of a party functionary.
5 – Should Joe “go off the reservation” in the future, the media might easily be led to change how they frame their reporting of this (probable) lunatic from one who was described as “independent” to someone who is ungrateful, churlish and childish.
As a result of how he handled this situation, there’s no one Lieberman is more indebted to than Obama.
I call that brilliant.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Let him keep his chair. BUT,
The multitude of Greenwich hedge funds, Electric boat, Sikorski, and Pratt & Whitney will all end up wishing, however, that they had a real Democrat representing Connecticut.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Considering what Vermont is like politically, it seems like a smart move.
The politics of the move were pretty moot, since Jeffords retired at the end of the term (and was replaced with another Democratic-caucusing independent, self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders).
November 19th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Eggy (#12), I think Lieberman would be around until at least 2012. He was reelected in 2006 so his seat is up in 2012, unless you believe he has a shortened term for some reason.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
My error, David.
Thanks!
November 19th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
The reason Jeffords could switch is because of a curious agreement in the Senate Organizing Resolution in 2001. Because Al Gore was VP on Jan 3 2001, he cast the tie-breaking vote and the dems could have theoretically won the vote despite facing a 51-50 deficit for all but 12 days of the term.
As a compromise, the dems got the GOP to agree to 1) split ownership of the committees and 2) the ability to automatically switch control and reorganize the committees if someone left the GOP caucus and joined the Dems. This happened when Jeffords was convinced.
In any other congress, these rules don’t apply. Changing the organizing rules normally requires passing a cloture vote to end any possible filibuster; generally speaking it hasn’t been attempted. (Previous senates have simply left the controlling party in power, even if mid-term changes in party or membership have left them in a minority.)
Removing Lieberman from his chairmanship requires changing the organizing resolution, which has to pass a cloture vote, which requires 60 votes (which the dems don’t have without Lieberman, natch). He has this seat for at least the next two years.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
it does seem that if someone changes parties, even nominally on one issue, they tend to adjust their views on other issues to fit their new party. The Dixiecrats turned Republicans and the neoconservatives of the 1970s. There are similar cases in Australia.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Jeffords was a Republican Congressman then a Senator since 1974. The party changed, not him. To pretend it was all about one piece of legislation on special education is ridiculous.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:05 am
To follow up: Nixon’s southern strategy changed the party, although by 1974, it really hadn’t reached all white Vermont yet.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:55 am
@13. PSP-
Of course, you screw Dodd by doing that. Which is what gives Lieberman real political cover.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Eggy, you really nail what I don’t like about this move. In a sane climate, giving Lieberman the chair shows bipartisanship on the part of the Obama administration, which would be helpful in the future (say, in opening communication lines with Cuba).
However, this is an INSANE political climate. It doesn’t matter what we do, the wingnuts will throw the same crap at us. They have their responses to policy speeches written BEFORE the speech has been made public.
Pretending the Republicans are some kind of legitimate good-faith ideological movement rather than an empty, cynical PR-and-war-profiteering machine will get us to 1994.
Furthermore, you can’t trust Joe Lieberman. He’s a douchebag,
November 28th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
If you want to find a city in the United States with an abnormally high healthy population go no further than Burlington, Vermont. Ninety-two percent of people say they are in good or great health; it’s also among the best in
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January 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 am
Regardless of the Politics being discussed here, I knew Senator Jeffords from the Navy Unit he served in, and he was a Good Man. He is definitely a Patriotic and Dedicated American, and most certainly NOT a Clinton/Pelosi type of sell-out Liberal.
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