Vermont today is known as one of the most liberal states in the nation. Indeed, the last Cook Partisan Voting Index figure on the state is a D+17, making it the most Democratic state in the nation. Yet, when the last Republican to represent the state in the Senate, James Merrill Jeffords (1934-2014), was born, Vermont was the exact opposite; it was the only state that never voted for the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. The state stuck with Taft in 1912 when only Utah did so, and it was one of only two states FDR could never win. Vermont was where Calvin Coolidge was born and raised as a rock-ribbed Republican, and one of its senators, Warren Austin, was one of six to vote against Social Security in 1935. This is the furthest thing from the mind of the man who currently holds his Senate seat…Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, Vermont did not vote for a Democratic president until 1964 and did not do so again until 1992, yet its party loyalty for so long is somewhat deceptive as to the truth about the nature of Vermont’s GOP. By the 1950s, the state party was dominated by moderates, with the wing headed by George Aiken and Ernest W. Gibson, Jr. being at the forefront. Aiken was a governor and longtime senator, while Gibson Jr. had been briefly a senator, then governor, then a justice on the Vermont’s district court. It was Gibson Jr. who mentored Jeffords in law and politics while he was his clerk from 1962 to 1963. He once told Jeffords when he questioned focusing on facts of the case as opposed to the letter of the law, “Never let the law get in the way of justice; justice is what counts” (Thomas, 159). Gibson’s words would influence Jeffords greatly in his career, including in his most famous political act, which I will get to later. Jeffords practiced law for a few years before embarking on a political career, winning a seat in the Vermont Senate in 1966. His term was sufficiently impressive for him to be elected the state’s attorney general, serving for two terms. Although Jeffords’ effort at winning the Republican nomination for governor in 1972 failed, his future would be in Congress.
Congressman Jeffords
In 1974, Jeffords was elected to the House in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Although Vermont’s voters proved willing to narrowly elect a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since the creation of the Republican Party that year in Patrick Leahy, they were keeping up their old habits for the House. Jeffords proved to be of the Aiken-Gibson wing while in the House. In 1978, he sponsored a substitute for President Carter’s public service jobs program by placing a $3.2 billion ceiling and instead to increase by $500 million funds for youth and private sector employment programs. The Democratic House adopted this proposal 221-181 on August 9th. He supported creating a consumer protection agency and voted to override President Ford’s vetoes of surface mining legislation in 1975 as well as bills liberalizing the Hatch Act, establishing a child daycare program, and public works funding in 1976. Of all the causes, Jeffords was most passionate about education, and to this end he voted for the creation of the Department of Education in 1979, a change from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that had existed since 1953. In 1981, Jeffords was the only House Republican to vote against the Reagan Administration’s tax cuts, embodied in the House as the Conable-Hance bill. On certain issues regarding business, he was more conservative, such as supporting tort reform. In 1982, Jeffords voted against a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution but would support versions of it in the 1990s.
On social issues, Jeffords was generally liberal. Although he was supportive of the death penalty he was not strongly so, he had a mixed record on gun control, and on the issues of abortion, regulation of online pornography, affirmative action, arts funding, busing, and LGBT rights he was liberal. On the Supreme Court, Jeffords bucked his party in his votes against the confirmations of Robert Bork in 1987 and Clarence Thomas in 1991 to the Supreme Court. He would later vote for the confirmation of John Roberts but against Samuel Alito in 2005.
Jeffords and Bill Clinton
Jeffords backed some key Clinton initiatives, including the Family Medical Leave Act, the Motor Voter Act, the Brady Act, and NAFTA. He also backed increasing the minimum wage as well as being the only Republican in Congress to voice support for Clinton’s proposed healthcare plan. This plan did not pass, but it was a precursor proposal to Obamacare. Jeffords would soon find himself holding a committee chairmanship for the first time.
Jeffords and the Republican Majority
In 1994, the Republicans won both the House and Senate, and this propelled Jeffords to the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He would be a prominent voice within the party for moderation and advocated for increased education spending, especially for disabled children. However, Jeffords did back some fiscally conservative positions, such as backing reduced taxes as well as opposing food stamp benefits for the children of illegal immigrants. He opposed the impeachment of President Clinton and hoped the 2000 election would bring a new direction for the US as well as the Republican Party, but he would be mistaken on the latter.
The 2001 Switch
Republican George W. Bush had won the presidency in 2000 by the skin of his teeth, and it turns out the Senate Republican majority was much in the same state, as it was 50-50, with Republicans only having a majority based on Vice President Dick Cheney breaking ties. Any defections were serious business, and Jim Jeffords stood as one of the most liberal Senate Republicans. He had his hopes that George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” would prove him to be a closet Rockefeller Republican, but the reality was that he took after Ronald Reagan. He came into conflict with the Bush Administration when he conditioned his support for tax reduction on the administration providing $180 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a frequently underfunded law. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-N.V.) saw a golden opportunity in Jeffords’ dissatisfaction with the trajectory of the Bush presidency and began a quiet campaign of courting him to leave the GOP. Republicans were aware of the rumors that Jeffords would leave, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) tried to keep him in the fold. He had put down conservative efforts to try to snatch his committee chairmanship from him and got him a post on the prestigious Finance Committee. However, Lott and other Republicans were not fully aware of how serious Jeffords’ intentions were to leave. What sealed the deal for him moving out of the GOP was the Bush Administration preferring tax reduction over increasing funds for education for disabled children; negotiations between the Bush Administration and Jeffords on the subject in April had ended in a frustrating stalemate. He subsequently visited Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) in his office, complaining that “This doesn’t seem to be working” and that education “is the biggest thing for me. But I’m not sure what to do here” (Waller). After Dodd suggested he could become a Democrat, Jeffords dismissed the possibility. However, he did tell him that he might become an Independent, which was good enough for Dodd and other Democrats (Waller). Jeffords announced his switch from Republican to Independent on May 24, 2001, and would caucus with the Democrats, giving them a 1-seat majority. This incensed the Republicans, with now Senate Minority Leader Lott denouncing the act as “a coup of one” and “the impetuous decision of one man to undermine our democracy” (PBS News). Although Republicans were unhappy about Jeffords’ decision, Vermonters largely agreed with Jeffords. However, his defection only produced a Senate Democratic majority for the rest of the session, as in 2002 Republicans won the majority back. In 2002 and 2004 he campaigned for Democratic candidates and his voting record moved considerably more liberal. For a time, he seemed raring to run again in 2006, if just to prove that Vermont supported him rather than the Republican Party. However, in 2005, Jeffords’ wife was diagnosed with cancer and things weren’t going well for Jeffords himself either. He had stumbled in his words in a radio interview, and he was experiencing memory problems (PBS). That year, Jeffords announced that he would not run for reelection. The following year, he was diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Jeffords’ Republican colleagues were still icy towards him over his 2001 switch, and among their senators, only Iowa’s Chuck Grassley delivered a speech praising him after he delivered his farewell speech. Throughout his career, Jeffords had agreed with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 67% of the time, while he agreed with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 33% of the time from 1975 to 1984, and his DW-Nominate score as a Republican was 0.014 and as an Independent it was -0.277. This made him one of the most liberal Republicans but one of the more moderate figures in the Democratic caucus.
Retirement
Retirement was not kind to Jeffords. In addition to his progressing Alzheimer’s disease, his wife died of cancer in 2007. He would die of complications of Alzheimer’s on August 18, 2014 at the age of 80. Jeffords was the last of
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
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Former Sen. James Jeffords, who reshaped the Senate in 2001, dies at 80. (2014, August 18). PBS News.
Retrieved from
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/sen-james-jeffords-reshaped-senate-2001-dies-80
Jeffords, James Merrill. Voteview.
Retrieved from
https://voteview.com/person/14240/james-merrill-jeffords and https://voteview.com/person/94240/james-merrill-jeffords
Jim Jeffords. On The Issues.
Retrieved from
https://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Jim_Jeffords.htm
O’Connor, K. (2011, May 22). The party’s over. What became of Jeffords’ political switch? The Rutland Herald.
Retrieved from
Thomas, M. (ed.) (2004). The right words at the right time. New York, NY: Atria Books.
Waller, D. (2001, May 28). How Jeffords got away. CNN.
Retrieved from
https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2001/06/04/jeffords.html
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 