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.
DC Office	413 DSOB20510, 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.
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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; since 2001 his voting record has been close to those of liberal Democrats.

In the 1990s, he was 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. 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. Jeffords's 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 gave New England dairy farmers far higher prices than those in the Midwest. Certainly he was attracted by the offer from then-Democratic Whip Harry Reid of the chairmanship of the Environment and Public Works Committee. At the time it was widely thought that Democrats would 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 presumably 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 entirely 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 retroactive MILC payments to farmers, but the first didn't arrive until October 2002, and in Vermont some labeled them "welfare." Jeffords, Patrick Leahy and Wisconsin's Herb Kohl tried in October 2004 to extend MILC payments beyond their September 2005 expiration date, but were not successful.

On the Environment Committee, Jeffords pressed for environmental causes, with varying success. His bills in 2001 to scale back carbon emissions to 1990 levels, and in 2002 to scale back emissions of various substances went nowhere. Since 2002 he has waged a fight for documents regarding EPA's rescission of the Clinton's administration's 1997 New Source Review regulation. In October 2003 he and committeee Democrats boycotted hearings on EPA administrator nominee Mike Leavitt, but Leavitt was confirmed later in the month. In January 2004 he charged that the departure of an EPA enforcement official was part of "an ongoing exodus" of officials uncomfortable with administration decisions. In April 2004 he held up nominees for four EPA positions because of what he called administration stonewalling on the New Source Review documents; committee chairman Jim Inhofe co-signed his letter expressing "our commonly held position that the agency is obligated to respond to requests from the chair and ranking member." In May 2004 Jeffords and nine other senators filed a legal brief arguing that the administration acted illegally on New Source Review.

Jeffords has opposed various versions of the Republicans' energy bill and, with Barbara Boxer, called for reinstatement of the tax on oil and chemical industries to finance Superfund cleanups. In June 2004 Jeffords's amendment to remove lead pipes from schools failed by 10-9 and was replaced by an amendment by Mike Crapo which provided $40 million grants to schools and $20 million to the District of Columbia, which, astonishingly, was shown to have a problem with lead contamination.

As an Independent who caucuses and mostly votes with Democrats, Jeffords is probably better off politically in Vermont than as a Republican. In 1994 he beat a Democratic state senator by only a 50%-41% margin. In 2000 he beat state Auditor Ed Flanagan 66%-25%. Since his party switch, Jeffords has been a star attraction at Democratic fundraisers; he has declined to campaign against incumbent Republican senators, but has campaigned for Democrats in open seats. Jeffords's seat comes up in 2006, and in April 2005 he announced he would not run for reelection. The early frontrunner to replace Jeffords was Congressman Bernie Sanders, an Independent who nevertheless had considerable support for his candidacy from Democrats. Governor Jim Douglas was considered the strongest possible Republican candidate but he declined to run. Other Republicans mentioned were Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie; IDX Corp. CEO Richard Tarrant; Greg Parke, a retired Air Force pilot who twice lost to Sanders; and Jack McMullen, the party's nominee against Senator Pat Leahy in 2004.

Committees

• Aging (Special).
• Environment & Public Works (RMM).
• Finance: Health Care; Social Security & Family Policy; Taxation & IRS Oversight (RMM).
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions: Education & Early Childhood Development; Employment & Workplace Safety; Retirement Security & Aging.
• Veterans' Affairs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	85	78	86	100	75	23	59	4	5	0	--
2003	85	--	89	89	--	23	36	10	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	58%	--	41%		69%	--	28%
Social	66%	--	33%		66%	--	33%
Foreign	74%	--	22%		85%	--	14%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Ban Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 5. Energy Bill N 6. Support Roe v. Wade Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Assault Weapons Ban Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Ban Bunker-Buster Bomb * 11. Fund Iraq War N 12. Restrict Missile Defense 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%)