Jim Jeffords on Principles & Values Independent Jr Senator (VT, retiring 2006)

OpEd: Left GOP because marginalized by Bush-Cheney agenda

The defection of Republican senator Jim Jeffords was a window into his early discord between the Congress and the new administration. He grasped fully the implications of the Bush-Cheney team embarking on its radical agenda, and attempting to marginalize and undermine Congress.

Senator Jeffords had served in Washington for decades. In 1974 he was one of the few Republicans able to win election to the House in the immediate fallout of the Watergate scandal.

He had seen a lot of ups and downs in the party's fortunes, but what was happening in Washington in the spring of 2001 led him to cross the aisle, become an independent and caucus with the Democrats.

Party switch gives control of Senate to Democrats

With the Senate evenly divided between the two parties, a switch by Jeffords would give Democrats a one-vote edge, elevating Tom. Daschle (D, SD) to the post of majority leader, now held by Trent Lott (R, MS), and complicating prospects for Bush’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. Democrats said they understood Jeffords would vote with Democrats on control of committees, meaning Republicans would be supplanted by Democrats as chairs of the panels.

Jeffords would be in line to become chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee under an agreement worked out with Democrats. Democrats last controlled the Senate in 1994, before a Republican sweep put both houses of Congress in Republican hands for the first time in a half-century.

Voted NO on confirming Samuel Alito as Supreme Court Justice.

Voted YES on confirming John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Religious affiliation: Congregationalist.

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Endorsed Endorsed by Log Cabin Republicans; supports gay rights.

Log Cabin Republicans is the nation’s largest gay and lesbian Republican organization. Log Cabin was founded to battle the nation’s first anti-gay ballot measure -- California’s Proposition 6 in 1978. We enlisted Ronald Reagan to publicly oppose the measure, which was then defeated. Since then, Log Cabin Republicans has grown and expanded to become a leading voice on the national stage on behalf of the mainstream concerns of the gay and lesbian community.

We care deeply about equality and we hold Republican views on crime, fiscal responsibility, and foreign policy. We believe in individual rights rather than group rights. We believe in limited government rather than big government. We believe that free markets lead to free people and that all Americans should be able to participate fully in the political process.

We represent the next generation for the gay and lesbian community. No longer will we be told where we must live, how we must dress, and how we must vote. Now there is a political alternative. We know that we will move ahead only when gay people are honest about who they really are. And as the far right continues its drive to dominate our Party, Log Cabin Republicans joins other mainstream Republicans on the front lines of the battle for the Republican Party’s future.

Mission Statement

Member of the Republican Main Street Partnership .

The Republican Main Street Partnership was founded in 1998 to promote thoughtful leadership in the Republican Party, to serve as a voice for centrist Republicans and to partner with individuals, organizations and institutions that share centrist values.

The Partnership pursues public policies that reflect a limited, but responsible role for government and that are designed to achieve fiscal responsibility, economic growth, improvements in the human condition and a nation that is globally competitive and secure. Partnership members include individuals who are interested in moderate Republican policies, focusing on governance and on finding common sense solutions to national problems.

The Republican Main Street Partnership is an organization of party members and public officials committed to building America's principled but pragmatic center within the Republican Party and throughout the nation. The Partnership contributes to the nation's governance through developing and promoting creative public policies for implementation at appropriate levels of government.

Fund the 50 States Commemorative Coin Program.

• Mandates redesign of quarter-dollar coins issued during the ten-year period beginning 1999, with the reverse side emblematic of five of the 50 States each year during such period, selected in the order of their ratification of the U.S. Constitution or their admission to the Union.
• Mandates that the dollar coin shall be golden in color, have a distinctive edge, with tactile and visual features making it readily discernible.
• Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to place into circulation $1 coins that comply with such mandate upon depletion of the Government's supply of $1 coins bearing the likeness of Susan B. Anthony.