JIM JEFFORDS OF VERMONT holds the dubious distinction of being the most liberal Republican in a Senate increasingly populated by conservatives. In recent weeks, Jeffords has emerged as the chief Republican obstacle to enacting the party’s legislative agenda. In the process, he has acquired something of a bunker mentality, which he uncharacteristically displayed for House and Senate Republicans at a meeting in the Capitol office of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole on December 16.
The meeting was called because of Jeffords’s fervent opposition to a $ 3.6 million provision — in the $ 5 billion District of Columbia appropriations bill — funding scholarships for District students to attend suburban public schools or District private schools. During the 45-minute session, House Speaker Newt Gingrich spelled out why the scholarships were a key to broader education reform for D.C. and then presented Jeffords with several compromises, such as limiting the program to elementary students or reducing the number of participants. (Dole mostly nudged Jeffords to agree with whatever Gingrich proposed.) Jeffords refused every offer, citing opposition from education unions, and demanded a separate Senate vote on the scholarships. But Gingrich feared a filibuster. He insisted the options were either to include the scholarships in the D.C. appropriations conference bill or to strip the bill of all its education language. When Jeffords opted for the latter, a red-faced Gingrich exploded, saying he couldn’t believe Jeffords would prevent low- income students from escaping the D.C. schools. With that, the stormy meeting ended, and scholarships were put on the back burner.
That Jeffords disagrees with most congressional Republicans on an array of issues is no surprise. Americans for Democratic Action, a left-wing interest group, rates him only slightly to the right of Ted Kennedy and on an equal footing with Carol Moseley-Braun, two Senate liberals. What surprises Jeffords’s colleagues is his obstinacy. It wasn’t a problem when Republicans were in the minority. Now that they hold the majority, however, their frustration with Jeffords is acute. Some staffers say only half-jokingly that when Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado switched parties earlier this year to become a Republican, he should have been swapped for Jeffords.
Better yet, Jeffords should simply get out of the reformers” way. On welfare, for example, he and Richard Lugar, a GOP senator from Indiana, refused to sign the conference report because it would devolve responsibility for. school lunches to the states. Before the scholarship scrum, welfare conferees had been led to believe Jeffords would agree to the Republican plan with modest compromises. Jeffords denied this, but on December 20 he signed the conference report, after receiving an extra $ 6 billion for child care and nutrition.
Another problem has been education, where there is a Republican consensus for deregulating public schools. But Jeffords, whose mother was a high school music teacher, wants to improve public schools through higher spending and regards as king them to compete with non-public schools as off limits. In 1994 he led an e ffort with Senator Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, to increase federal spe nding on education from 2 percent of the budget to 10 percent. These positions won him the endorsement of the National Education Association in his reelection fight last year (one of only three congressional Republicans to receive such a blessing). But once the Republicans won control of Congress, he took stock of t he new climate and dropped his plan for increased funding. Since then he has be en traveling the country visiting schools in poor areas. In April he got the Bu siness Roundtable to sponsor an education summit that he co-chaired with Richar d Riley and Terrel Bell, education secretaries under Clinton and Reagan. He als o spends an hour a week reading to children at the Robert E. Brent Elementary S chool in Washington, and in September he spoke at an NEA “bake sale” in the Capitol to protest proposed reductions in federal education spending.
Jeffords’s close tie with the NEA shows how far he is philosophically from his Republican colleagues, many of whom regularly excoriate the group for its refusal to support programs like school choice. Further proof of the split came at a recent meeting over the scholarship impasse. Jeffords program to after-school tutoring. While this was unacceptable to scholarship supporters, they were taken aback when Jeffords revealed that the proposal had been given to him by Gordon Arebach, executive director of the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers. Market-oriented education reformers on Capitol Hill view Ambach as a foe of substantive reform in education.
It’s hard to know what is making Jeffords so unyielding on the scholarships, but he is paying a price. Because he repeatedly has blocked federal grants enabling students mired in one of the country’s worst school systems to study elsewhere, Jeffords is being compared to notorious figures such as George Wallace and Orval Faubus, who also stood against expanding educational opportunity. Despite the pressure, he continues to resist lobbying by education reformers George Voinovich, Republican governor of Ohio, and John Norquist, Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, as well as Dole, who urged Jeffords to “take a second look” at the scholarships.
Equally obstructionist, though less publicized, were Jeffords’s tactics during the debate on overhauling milk programs. When House Republicans made these programs symbols of a bygone era, Rep. Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin crafted a proposal to mostly deregulate the dairy industry. This would never win support from Jeffords, second-leading Senate recipient of PAC money from dairy cooperatives, who represents thousands of heavily subsidized farmers. Jeffords remained surprisingly silent about the Gunderson plan until Dole asked him in late October what was needed to win his support for the balanced budget. Jeffords then proposed his own milk program, which Jonathan Tolman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute calls “a dairy version of East Germany.” A government commission would be created to set the price of milk, and it would be illegal for dairy farmers from any non-New England state to sell their goods in New England below the government price. Jeffords also made clear he would oppose any budget that included the Gunderson plan. A nasty fight was averted only when House Republicans couldn’t agree among themselves on dairy reform, thus scuttling the effort. But Jeffords’s maneuverings signaled he was prepared to hold up the budget to get his way.
Such obstinacy will not be forgotten. Jeffords is personally popular on both sides of the aisle and sings in a quartet with conservative Republican colleagues Trent Lott, John Ashcroft, and Larry Craig (the group recently performed on NBC’s Today show). But popularity won’t protect Jeffords from the consequences of his obstructionism. With Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum retiring in 1996, he is slated to become chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. Seniority used to govern such matters, but Senate Republicans adopted a rule this year whereby committee chairmen must win the approval of their colleagues by secret ballot. That’s got to worry Jeffords. Considering his tactics on welfare, D.C. scholarships, and milk — coupled with the unforgettable fact that he was the only Senate Republican to support the Clinton health-care plan — the chances of his ever becoming chairman grow dimmer by the day. ,
by Matthew Rees
