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US Democrats Regain Senate Power With Jeffords Switch
US Senator James Jeffords on Thursday announced his decision to abandon the Republican Party and become an independent, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats for the first time since 1994 and dealing a severe blow to President George W Bush's agenda.
"I will leave the Republican Party and will become an independent," Jeffords made the announcement in his home state of Vermont, saying that he would caucus with the Senate's Democrats " for organizational purposes."
Jeffords' decision breaks the party deadlock in the upper chamber, which had been evenly divided with Vice President Dick Cheney having the tie-breaking vote.
The switch will automatically elevate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota to the post of majority leader and make Democrats regain committee chairmanships they lost in the 1994 elections.
After the seismic shift of power, there will now be 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and one independent in the Senate.
Jeffords said he felt he had no choice but make the switch after he assessed President Bush's fiscal 2002 budget and the president's plan to overhaul the public education system.
Jeffords, a committee chairman who frequently crosses party lines on high-profile issues, has had strained relations with the White House.
Jeffords angered the White House this spring when he refused to support Bush's budget with its 1.6 trillion dollars, 10-year tax cut.
The 67-year-old moderate lawmaker also felt unhappy not to be invited to a teacher-of-the-year ceremony at the White House following his earlier vote on the Bush tax plan.
President Bush rejected Senator James Jeffords' assertion that the president was leading the Republican Party out of America's mainstream.
"Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more," Bush said at a speech in Cleveland, Ohio. "Our agenda for reforming America's public schools and providing tax relief for every taxpayer represents the hopes and dreams of Main Street America."
The White House also expressed its disappointment at Senator Jeffords' decision to withdraw from the Republican Party.
"We are disappointed. The president was elected to get things done, and he has been working in a bipartisan fashion, which is the way he will continue to work with Republicans, Democrats and now one Independent in the Senate to accomplish meaningful reforms, " White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.
Senator Tom Daschle, soon to become majority leader, immediately called for "principled compromise" between the parties and pledged to work with Bush and Senate Republican leader Trent Lott to formulate a popular agenda. But he said Democrats would want to concentrate on a number of core issues.
The top two items on the Democratic agenda will be completing a bill, now moving through Congress, to revamp education programs, and pressing for new restrictions on health maintenance organizations, he said.
The political impact of Jeffords' switch was unprecedented. Never before in the nation's history has control of the Senate changed parties other than through an election.
"This isn't about a single Senate seat," said Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli. "It's about controlling the legislative agenda... and it's about the federal judiciary. This is an enormous shift of influence in the federal government."
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