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Tag: independents
James Jeffords, Vermont Senator Who Left The GOP, Dies At 80

James Jeffords, Vermont Senator Who Left The GOP, Dies At 80

By Rebecca Bratek, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Although he made his career in politics, Jim Jeffords was a modest man who disliked cameras and speeches.

In May 2001, however, the three-term senator from Vermont found himself in the spotlight when he quit the Republican Party and tipped the Senate into Democratic hands. The GOP, he said at the time, no longer reflected the moderate principles in which he believed.

Jeffords died Monday at a military retirement residence in Washington, D.C., according to Diane Derby, a former press secretary and family spokeswoman. The cause of death was unclear, but Jeffords had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 80.

Jeffords served more than 30 years in Congress, starting when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1974. He moved to the Senate in 1988.

He decided not to run for a fourth term and retired from the Senate in 2007, citing his and his wife’s health problems. His wife, Elizabeth “Liz” Daley, died that year.

In a statement, President Barack Obama hailed the renegade Republican for “the fiercely independent spirit that made Vermonters, and people across America, trust and respect him.”

“Whatever the issue — whether it was protecting the environment, supporting Americans with disabilities, or whether to authorize the war in Iraq — Jim voted his principles, even if it sometimes meant taking a lonely or unpopular stance,” Obama said. “Vermonters sent him to Washington to follow his conscience, and he did them proud.”

Before Jeffords left the GOP, the Senate was split 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, with Vice President Dick Cheney, a Republican, providing the tie-breaking vote.

Jeffords’ move left Senate Republicans with 49 votes. Although he declared himself an independent, he caucused with Senate Democrats, giving them effective control of the chamber.

It was a rare moment in U.S. history when one lawmaker upended the political status quo with just one vote.

“In 2001, he displayed enormous courage by leaving a party that, he often said, had left him because of its dramatic move to the right,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who succeeded Jeffords. “Jim was one of the most popular elected officials in the modern history of the state.”

“He was a Vermonter through and through, drawn to political life to make a difference for our state and nation,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who is Vermont’s other senator.

Liberal on social issues and cautious on fiscal matters, Jeffords showed his maverick streak early in his career.

He was the sole Republican House member to vote against President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981. He also voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Brady Bill on gun control, and an end to the ban on gays serving in the military.

James Merrill Jeffords was born in Rutland, Vt., on May 11, 1934. His father, Olin Jeffords, served as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, and his mother, Marion Hausman, was a homemaker.

He attended public schools in Rutland, and received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1956. He served three years in the Navy before he attended Harvard Law School, where he was awarded his degree in 1962.

While practicing law in Shrewsbury, Vt., he got involved in local politics and was elected to the state Senate in 1966. As Vermont’s attorney general from 1969 to 1973, he helped draft landmark environmental laws, including a ban on billboards and land protection legislation.

He and his wife were married twice, first in 1961, and then after a divorce in 1978, again in 1986. He is survived by his two children, Laura and Leonard.

Photo via WikiCommons

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Poll: Americans Say Unemployment Is The Top Problem Facing The Nation

Poll: Americans Say Unemployment Is The Top Problem Facing The Nation

A Gallup poll released Monday finds that a 23 percent plurality of Americans say unemployment is the most important problem facing the nation today.

Another 20 percent say it’s the “economy in general.” “Dissatisfaction” with the government, Congress and politicians, or with “poor leadership,” “corruption,” and “abuse of power” comes in third; 19 percent of Americans consider it to be the country’s top problem.

Health care – specifically “poor” health care and hospitals, as well as the “high cost of health care” – is fourth on the list with 15 percent.

Republicans and Democrats are united in their concern over the nation’s jobs crisis. In fact, an equal 24 percent from both parties say that unemployment is the most important problem in the country today – 23 percent of Independents agree.

The economy in general worries Republicans more than Democrats: 22 percent of Republicans named it as their number-one concern, while only 17 percent of Democrats and 21 percent of Independents said the same.

On government and health care, however, a clearer contrast emerges between Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Only 14 percent of Republicans feel the government is the nation’s top problem, but a greater percentage of Democrats and Independents – 17 percent and 21 percent, respectively – maintain the same position, which puts the issue third in the poll. On health care, more Republicans express concern – 18 percent call it the biggest problem in the country – but fewer Democrats and Independents feel the same way.

With midterm elections approaching in November, the poll’s findings may serve as a warning for the GOP, whose members are using an almost exclusively anti-Obamacare platform to discredit their Democratic opponents and attract votes. Although another Gallup poll released in early February shows that a majority of Americans still disapprove of the new health care law, to voters, it is less important than pocketbook issues like unemployment, job creation, and the overall state of the economy – subjects on which the Democratic Party’s stances are more popular than the GOP’s.

Even if attacks on the Affordable Care Act appeal to Republican voters, the GOP will eventually need to come up with economic proposals that resonate with the broader public. Doing so would likely mean that the Republican Party would have to either change its position on or suggest a replacement to economic proposals backed by Democrats – like a minimum-wage hike and an extension of federal unemployment benefits.

Democrats, however, have challenges of their own. Only 22 percent of Americans feel satisfied with the “way things are going” in the country – 5 percent less than the 27 percent who said the same a year ago, and 1 percent less than the 23 percent who said so in December and January.

The Gallup poll was conducted between February 6 and 9, and surveyed 1,023 adults nationwide. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.

Graph via Gallup

POLL: Republican Party More Unpopular Than It Has Been In Decades

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Not since 1983, when Gallup conducted all of its polling in person, has the Republican Party been as unpopular as it is today. Only 25 percent of those surveyed identified with the GOP throughout the course of 2013.

Independents are the fastest-growing group that Americans identify with, at 42 percent. The number of people not identifying with a political party generally rises in an election year, Gallup reports. But independents have been at around 40 percent for the last three years.

Democrats, at 31 percent, are down from their 2008 peak, but still at about what they’ve averaged since 1988.

When independents are asked to identify with a party, Democrats have a 6 percent advantage, which is half of their peak in 2008, but up 1 percent since 2012.

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While President Obama’s poll numbers are still underwater on average, with more disapproving than approving, it appears that the lasting damage of the Bush/Cheney administration has been compounded by the government shutdown, which voters largely blamed on the GOP.

But this dissatisfaction may not translate at the ballot box in the 2014 midterms due to the preponderance of safe Republican seats in the House and most competitive Senate races being held in red states. Despite the party identification advantage of 6 percent according to Gallup, Democrats only hold a scant .2 percent lead in an average of generic congressional ballot polls.