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Parties & Politicians: The Jeffords Decision 24 May 2001 The decision of Senator James Jeffords to leave the Republican Party was understandably the focus of national attention. As we have pointed to elsewhere in this special report, and as has been more than amply reported by major media the world over, because his decision has shifted party representation in the Senate in favor of the Democrats, both the political agenda and the political process in Washington have been dramatically altered. But there is another side to Senator Jeffords' decision, and one which has been commented upon more often closer to home, here in Vermont, that deserves at least some closer attention to detail. In brief, this side has to do with the question of loyalty -- of Senator Jeffords to his former party, and of voters to Senator Jeffords. Questions of Loyalty, Betrayal &
Courage Yet, on the other side of this question of loyalty, Bryan also emphasized the fact -- again, not once only -- that Senator Jeffords owed his re-election to the Republican Party. Because party officials dissuaded others from challenging him, because they raised money for him, and because Republicans around the state were encouraged to vote for Jeffords -- irrespective of whatever disagreements they may have had with some of Senator Jeffords' policies, and, at least in part, so that the party could better insure its majority in the Senate -- Bryan suggested, that the party rightly felt betrayed. That some, probably many who voted for Senator Jeffords in the past are likely to do so again next time around is almost a given. That some, perhaps many members of the Republican Party feel betrayed by Senator Jeffords' decision is also not in dispute. But that Professor Bryan can suggest, on the one hand, that Senator Jeffords owes his re-election to the Republican Party while, on the other, also suggesting that Jeffords will not experience any negative repercussions because of his decision, these would seem to be mutually exclusive propositions. The question here is not whether members of the Republican Party have a right to feel betrayed. Inasmuch as political party affiliation means an unwavering allegiance to the party, to that extent, they probably have every right to feel betrayed. But the more important question here has to do with something even more fundamental than party affiliation in our predominantly two-party system. It has to do with what it means to cast one's vote in a democratic republic. The Question
of What It Means to Cast One's Vote If the primary purpose of casting one's vote is to vote for a party, and not the particular person, then we've got our method of voting all wrong. Instead, our ballots could be greatly simplified by having voters choose between the parties, then allowing the party leaders to choose who will represent the populace. But that is not how we do it. We vote for individuals. And for many, perhaps especially here in Vermont, we often do so irrespective of party affiliation. It is, for example, no accident that we have had, up to now, the only Independent in Congress in the person of Bernie Sanders. But long before Bernie, Vermont, like other New England states, has shown its bent for more independent-minded politicians. In the case of the Republican Party, that has meant moderate Republicans like former Senators Aiken and Stafford, and, of course, more recently, Jim Jeffords. In this light, one of the more disturbing things to come out of last night's Switchboard program had to do with the suggestion that party affiliation and party loyalty were there for a particular reason. The reason? The one given by Bryan seemed to be that, since many voters have neither the time nor the resources to become sufficiently familiar with individual candidates, parties exist primarily as a means to help voters make choices in relative ignorance. His words bear repeating: Recounting his early childhood experience with politics and party, particularly of his mother's pro-Roosevelt and pro-Truman stance, Bryan's words may serve to shed some light on both the nature of party-line voting and on Senator Jeffords' decision.
In fairness to Bryan, he goes on to note that Jeffords' decision may help to correct what he sees as the problem inherent in that last remark: By leaving the Republican Party and caucusing with the Democrats, Jeffords will have helped to bring the parties more "in alignment." Whether democracy and the republic would be strengthened by such ideological alignment is an open question. But the disturbing element in Bryan's assessment isn't that. It's the implication that party politics is there for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to assess the candidate as an individual, to take account of him or her, and what he or she stands for. Knowing the party platform, the voter could simply cast his or her vote on that basis. Again, we could decide that such an approach -- single-party affiliation and voting for that party's platform -- was the one we wanted. One of the possible benefits of such an approach might have been to make the debacle in Florida this past election moot. But that is not the way we vote, not even in a primary any longer. And a vote only for party and platform ignores some of the most fundamentally important decisions to be made -- whether by voters in voting booths, or by the politicians who were elected and who vote in subsequent roll calls. Voting, Issues &
Conscience ... The issue of abortion is one which, at least to some extent, supposedly divides the Democratic & Republican parties along fairly clear lines. But suppose a voter is a blue-collar Catholic, interested in workers' rights and labor issues, as well as the Church's stand against abortion. Historically, this voter's labor interests would be better served by the traditional Democratic platform, while his or her anti-abortion interest would be better served by the Republican. Alternatively, suppose a voter is in a managerial position with a corporation, interested in strengthening what he or she sees as adequate protections for business, but is also in favor of choice when it comes to the question of abortion. Historically, here too, the voters interests would be divided between the two parties' platforms. In both of these cases, if the voter is supposed to be able to find, in examining the broad strokes of each party's platform, one which represented his or her interests, he or she would have a pretty rough time of it. There would be no adequate representation with either party. Such difficulties would arise, of course, not only out of national issues like abortion. There are other cases in which adequate and accurate representation of a voter's interests would fail to find expression in a homogeneous platform of a single party. For example, many of the more important issues which face groups of voters, very appropriately, have to do with regional interests. In Vermont, two examples might be environmental concerns and the Dairy Compact. Here, too, as with the abortion-centered examples, there can easily be a mingling of interests which cross traditional party lines. In such circumstances, should voters be constrained to a choice between two major party platforms only? Or might there not be, quite properly, a great deal of room for variety among the politicians within each party? The question of adequate representation in as diverse a society as ours -- with things like regional interests, attitudes toward fiscal policy and domestic programs and spending, foreign policy and human rights agenda -- all these and more properly inform the decision to vote. And the likelihood that the diverse blocs of voters which naturally arise out of such a mix of interests should find adequate representation in a single party's platform seems extremely unlikely at best. But the most important issue facing any voter, whatever his or her interests and inclinations, cannot and should not be simple party affiliation or regional interest, which can, sometimes with similarly detrimental effects, come to be as blindly dogmatic. The most important issue facing any voter is how to vote in good conscience. ... What might that mean? ... It was William James who, commenting on the value of education in a democracy, said that the task of such education ought to be to help us to know a good man when we see one. If we make the necessary adjustment for history and take that to mean 'man or woman', it would seem to offer one of the more important lessons we might take in the midst of the debate over Jim Jeffords' decision. For those of us who cast our vote for candidates for public office, good conscience cannot only mean a single party's platform. It ought to also include all the particulars -- of campaign speeches, of voting records, of promises made and kept or not. But, most especially, it ought to include a fairly clear sense of the person seeking office. So we vote, on that basis and on nothing less, and we thereby transform a candidate into a representative. In so doing, we ought to realize that this representative's votes of good conscience will, in the large majority of instances, mean a balancing act ... an art of compromise that means taking into account the myriad of interests -- of regional representation, of the more common good, of the mutual support necessary to bring bills up for vote and into law. Such compromise usually means amendments to bills, and, therefore, can often mean supporting things one might not otherwise support in order to achieve some other or larger purpose. But it ought never mean violating one's conscience. And so, when circumstances dictate the need for it -- with or without the support of one's party, or even one's constituency -- sometimes voting requires the expression of individual conscience. If we are to take him at his word, that was the foundation of Senator Jeffords' decision. For reasons both practical and impractical, he found himself no longer able to serve as a member of the Republican Party in good conscience. That his defection leaves many Republicans with a sour taste in their mouths is only to be expected. Others were left with a similar foul taste when the Supreme Court made its decisions in the last presidential election. But it was not some anonymous Republican we elected to serve in Washington. It was Jim Jeffords, the man. And to expect a man to violate his conscience in favor of party unity is asking too much. The Question of
Representation In this context, there is an argument to be made for a representative who would always vote according to the will of the majority of his or her constituents. With regard to Senator Jeffords' decision, while not actually a vote per se, it would seem from early samplings that his choice to leave the Republican Party is in line with the majority of his constituents. We will inevitably know more along these lines the next time he faces re-election. In any event, it is unlikely that that was the reason for his departure. Like voting along strict party lines, a strictly representative approach to voting would also mean a change in our means and methods of voting. Just as party-line voting would be more appropriately handled by voting for parties rather than candidates, then having the party leaders fill in the slates, voting by the majority-will of a constituency would be more appropriately handled by removing the 'middle man', i.e., by having the popular referendum become the primary vehicle for political choice, issue by issue and bill by bill. Of course, with all the polling done by politicians these days, we may be closer to this model than we realize. Samplings of likely voters help, as much as anything, to shape at least the political discourse and the language in which legislative agenda is couched. But it would not be unthinkable, at least in the near future, to have a relatively low-cost and efficient means for conducting referenda on a regular basis. Of course, if this prerogative were extended to the entire gamut of work now conducted by the Congress {or any other legislative body}, probably very few bills would ever be formulated, much less come to a vote. It would be all too easy to imagine the entire nation stuck on framing the language of a bill. One can fill in the remaining blanks with similar scenarios. But here, too, the point, at least at present, is moot. This is simply not the way in which our current political system is framed. We live -- and vote -- in a representative democratic republic. But we vote, first and foremost, for the person. If there are those who feel betrayed, then, by Senator Jeffords' decision, they will have an opportunity next time around to remove him from office. The basis upon which gubernatorial hopeful Ruth Dwyer mounted her campaign against incumbent governor Howard Dean was not dissimilar. And the fact that she lost her bid means nothing more than that the majority of Vermonters preferred Dean and his politics to Dwyer's, or, for that matter, or Pollina's. But to speak of betrayal to a group when also speaking of an exercise of individual conscience is almost redundant. When the will of the individual and the will of the group are in agreement, even when conscience may be involved, there is no exercise in it. It is, as we say, a cake walk. It is only when individual conscience comes into conflict with the will of the group that exercise, often quite strenuous exercise, is called for. And anyone who supposes that Senator Jeffords' decision asked anything less of him is probably very much mistaken. Lou Colasanti, Editor . |
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