Sen. James Jeffords (I) Elected 1988, 3d term up 2006
Born:	May 11, 1934, Rutland
Home:	Shrewsbury
Education:	Yale U., B.S. 1956, Harvard U., LL.B. 1962
Religion:	Congregationalist
Marital Status:	married (Elizabeth)
Elected  Office:	VT Senate, 1966-68; VT Atty. Gen., 1968-72; U.S. House of Reps. 1974-88.
Military Career:	Navy, 1956-59, Naval Reserves, 1959-90.
Professional Career:	Law clerk, 1962-63; Practicing atty., 1963-69, 1973-75; Shrewsbury Repub. Party Chmn., 1963-74; Town Agent, Grand Juror, 1964.
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Jim Jeffords, the senator whose departure in May 2001 from the Republican Party gave the Democrats a majority in the Senate for 18 months, was first elected to the House in 1974 and to the Senate in 1988. He grew up in Rutland, the son of a Vermont chief justice, went to Yale, served in the Navy, went to Harvard Law School and then returned to Shrewsbury in the Green Mountains to practice law. He was elected state senator in 1966, at 32, and then state attorney general in 1968 and 1970. In 1974, he was elected to the House and in 1988, when Senator Robert Stafford retired, to the Senate. For 27 years he had one of the most liberal voting records of any congressional Republican; now his voting record is very similar to those of liberal Democrats.

In the 1990s, he became one of Bill Clinton's favorite Republicans. He voted for family and medical leave, motor voter, national service, the Brady bill and the 1994 crime package, despite Vermont's anti-gun control sentiment; in July 1993, he announced he was supporting the not-yet-written Clinton health care plan--the only Republican member of Congress who ever did. Jeffords was one of four Republican senators to vote for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999, and one of four to vote for the Democratic version of the minimum wage in November 1999. As chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee from 1997 to June 2001--a post he got with help from Majority Leader Trent Lott, he promised not to hold up legislation backed by all other Republicans, but otherwise mostly voted with ranking Democrat Edward Kennedy. He did, however, take the lead on the Republican bill to allow worker-management consultation, vehemently opposed by labor unions. His bill to allow import of prescription drugs from other countries passed 74-21 in July 2000 and was ultimately signed. He was the principal Republican co-sponsor of hate crimes legislation and of the bill to ban discrimination because of sexual orientation; he supported the Vermont civil unions law.

What prompted Jeffords to switch parties? He later said he had pondered doing so off and on for 20 years; he was obviously out of line with most other Republicans on many issues. He made his announcement on May 24, 2001, and said though he would call himself an Independent, he would caucus with the Democrats; the new organizing resolution giving Democrats the majority leadership and majorities on committees was not passed until June. Precipitating the issue was the Bush tax cut. His refusal to support the $1.6 trillion Bush tax cut left it one vote short in the Senate; the result was a $1.3 trillion cut, which Jeffords voted for even as he announced he was leaving the Republican Party. In his negotiations with the White House, he says he asked for and got a commitment to a $180 billion increase over 10 years for special education, a program for which he has great affection. Bush aides said he asked for $1.5 billion in a meeting April 3 with Bush, and got it, and then evidently decided that wasn't enough and demanded more. He may have been more disturbed by conservative columnists' reports of further White House retaliation, including possible opposition to the Northeast Dairy Compact, set to expire in September 2001, which gives New England dairy farmers far higher prices than those in the Midwest. Certainly he was attracted by the offer from Democratic Whip Harry Reid of the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee. At the time it was widely thought that Democrats might get a majority if and when 98-year-old Strom Thurmond died and was replaced by a Democrat (as it happened, Thurmond lived to celebrate his 100th birthday in December 2002 in the Senate); a chairmanship would not be on offer to a switcher who only added to a Democratic majority. Jeffords's account, at the time and in his 2001 book My Declaration of Independence, was that he "had to be true to what I thought was right, and leave the consequences to sort themselves out."

The consequences did not sort themselves out too favorably for him. The Northeast Dairy Compact expired in September 2001. Jeffords and colleague Patrick Leahy cobbled together a national dairy compact in December 2001, which would fix prices paid by milk processors and subsidize dairy farmers when prices fell below a certain level, but they were never able to reach agreement with critical colleagues from Wisconsin and no separate bill passed. The farm bill passed in spring 2002 did provide some retroactive payments to farmers, but they didn't arrive until October 2002, and in Vermont, since they were paid by the government rather than by milk processors, they were labeled "welfare." Meanwhile, in December 2001, Democrats in conference committee refused to hold out against House Republicans for the amount of special education spending Jeffords wanted. Jeffords was reported to be "depressed."

On the Environment Committee, Jeffords pressed for environmental causes, with varying success. In March 2001, he had sponsored a bill to scale back carbon emissions to 1990 levels--a quixotic goal. A more limited bill covering power plants--to scale back emissions of sulfur 95%, nitrogen oxides 85%, carbon dioxide 25% and mercury 90%--passed the committee by a 10-9 vote in June 2002. But Democrat Max Baucus immediately announced he'd vote against it, because it would close down many power plants in 2008, and it was clear the bill was going nowhere. In April 2002, Jeffords opposed a proposed treaty phasing out a dozen toxic chemicals because it didn't provide for eliminating other pollutants in the future. In June 2002, he considered issuing a subpoena for documents relating to EPA's consideration of rules for new-source pollution; he decided against it when the EPA agreed to provide some of the documents. In July 2002, he held hearings on a national bottle deposit law like those in Vermont and other states--another nonstarter. That same month, he switched his long-held position and voted against permanent storage of nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain--an obvious thank you to Harry Reid, its most strenuous opponent.

One reason that Jeffords may have switched is that, in a politically polarized Vermont where Republicans were increasingly conservative, he would always be vulnerable in a Republican primary. Even in the general, he could be threatened: In 1994, he beat state Senator Jan Backus by only a 50%-41% margin, and a February 1999 poll showed him leading Congressman Bernie Sanders, the Burlington socialist who runs as an Independent but caucuses with Democrats, by only 42%-37%. But Sanders didn't run in 2000, and Jeffords won easily over state Auditor Ed Flanagan, 66%-25%-- it helped that Trent Lott and Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed in November 1999 to a two-year extension of the Northeast Dairy Compact to save his seat. Jeffords's seat does not come up until 2006, but now he is positioned to run either as an Independent with no serious Democratic opposition (Democrats have been giving Sanders a bye for years) or as a Democrat (he was the star attraction at a big Senate Democrats fundraiser in February 2002), in either case against a presumably conservative Republican who would be at a disadvantage in what is now a pretty solidly Democratic state. And there is historic precedent: Since popular election of senators came in, no elected senator from Vermont has been defeated for reelection.

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DC Office
413 DSOB 20510, 202-224-5141; Fax: 202-228-0776; Web site: jeffords.senate.gov

State Offices
Burlington, 802-658-6001; Montpelier,802-223-5273; Rutland,802-773-3875.

Committees

• Aging (Special).
• Environment & Public Works (RMM).
• Finance: Health Care; International Trade; Taxation & IRS Oversight.
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Children & Families; Employment, Safety & Training.
• Veterans' Affairs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	95	60	86	76	8	75	18	53	6	16	--
2001	40	--	58	75	--	--	49	64	29	--	40

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	47%	--	49%		72%	--	27%
Social	58%	--	42%		82%	--	0%
Foreign	51%	--	43%		78%	--	21%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 2. Expand Patients' Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court * 10. Trade Promotion Authority Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2000 general	James Jeffords (R)	189,133	66%	$1,889,243
	Ed Flanagan (D)	73,352	25%	$1,054,977
	Other	26,015	9%
2000 primary	James Jeffords (R)	60,234	78%
	Rick Hubbard (R)	15,991	21%
	Other	1,204	2%
1994 general	James Jeffords (R)	106,505	50%	$1,174,973
	Jan Backus (D)	85,868	41%	$308,069
	Gavin T. Mills (I)	12,465	6%
	Other	6,834	3%
Prior winning percentages: 1988 (70%); 1986 House (89%); 1984 House (65%); 1982 House (69%); 1980 House (79%); 1978 House (75%); 1976 House (67%); 1974 House (53%)