The 2000 election left the U.S. Senate split 50-50. But with Dick Cheneyas the tie-breaking vice president, Republicans were given control. This majority gave Republicans untold power over the legislative process. Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi could set the Senate’s agenda and choose who chaired each Senate committee.But in May 2001, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, disaffected by the rightward shift of his party, announced his departure from the Republican Party to become an independent and caucus with the Democrats, who thus gained control over the chamber.
Jim Jeffords spent decades casting lonely votes asa staunch supporterof disability rights, LGBTQ rights, access to affordable healthcare, environmental protection and many other causes, most of which are not supported by today’s Republican Party. He waspraised for his ability to stand up for what he believed in rather than take the easy path of towing the party line.
Since Trump’s election, many powerful Democrats haveproclaimed that some Republican senators would follow in Jeffords' footsteps and stand up to a far-right takeover of the GOP. When Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain voted alongside Democratsto kill their party’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, some hoped that Senate Republicans would take a harder line against Trump and challenge him more often. These hopes were naive from the beginning.
All you have to do is check how often these senators are voting with Trump. Even ignoring prominent votes like impeachment or the Kavanaugh confirmation, most Senate Republicans have rarely strayed from their party. Of every Republican who has served in the senate during the Trump presidency,only five have voted with the president less than 80% of the time. Even one of the most “anti-Trump” Republican senators, Maine’s Susan Collins, hasvoted with Trump twice as often as she’s voted against him.
Sen. Cory Booker said Republicans should“honor their word” about not confirming a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. Yet Judge Amy Coney Barrett is poised to beconfirmed just days before the election. Earlier this year, Chuck Schumer suggested that four“conscientious brave Republicans” would vote to allow witnesses at Trump’s impeachment trial. Onlytwo did.
Jim Jeffords left the Senate in 2007. How could Democrats be so naive to even consider there might be another like him lurking somewhere in the Republican cloakroom?
When Jeffords died,he was praised by none other than his successor Bernie Sanders for being an effective, prominent supporter of the arts, education, the environment and disability rights.
Trump is the ultimate end state of what Republicans have wanted for decades. I am sure many Democratic senators remember the good ol’ days of civility and deal-making decades ago, but that environment does not exist anymore.
With today's political climate, there is no more room for another Jim Jeffords in the Republican Party.
