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Republicans Could Regain Control Lowell Ponte In the presidential election of 2000, voters awarded Republicans control of the White House, House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. But in May 2001, only weeks after newly elected lawmakers had been sworn in, the Senate switched to Democratic Party control.
Such a reversal of power could happen again.
In the 2006 midterm elections Democrats won enough seats to tie Republicans 49-49. Democratic control depends on two independents. One is Vermont Senator-elect Bernie Sanders, a congressman, founder of the House's Progressive Caucus, and self-described "socialist" who vows to vote with the Democratic Party.
The other independent is incumbent Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who in 2006 lost his state's Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, an anti-Iraq war leftist with heavy financial backing from Hollywood liberals and out-of-state extremist groups like MoveOn.org.
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Lieberman ran for re-election as an independent and beat Lamont by an overwhelming 10 percent margin.
Lieberman told voters he planned to "caucus with the Democrats" if re-elected and has described himself as an "independent Democrat." Senate Democrats, needing his vote, designated Lieberman chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. But during Lieberman's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" after his victory, Tim Russert asked: If the Democrats "ask for discipline in the Democratic caucus, and you start to feel uncomfortable with it, would you consider going across the aisle, and joining the Republicans, if they gave you the same chairmanship that you had, and respected your seniority?" "Yeah, well, that's a hypothetical," replied Lieberman, "which I'm not going to deal with. I'm going to be an optimist, and take some encouragement from the fact that this was an election in which, in the House and Senate, Democrats came to the majority of both chambers by electing moderates mostly."
When pressed about whether he might switch to the Republican side, Sen. Lieberman replied: "I'm not ruling it out, but I hope I don't get to that point." If Sen. Lieberman crosses the aisle, the Senate would be tied 50-50. The Constitution specifies that Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, would break any tie vote.
Republicans would control the Senate.
The left is almost apoplectic about this possibility. Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive Magazine, wrote contemptuously of how this moderate (at least on foreign policy) senator on "Meet the Press" was "his usual, insufferable, unctuous self" who "might jump ship" and "end up a Republican yet, and swing the Senate back to Bush. A snake is a snake."
Rothschild made no such accusations against turncoat liberal Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords. In 2000 Jeffords won re-election as a Republican with GOP money and support. His victory gave Republicans control of the Senate.
But in May 2001 Jim Jeffords declared himself an independent and voted to switch Senate control from Republicans chosen by voters to Democrats rejected by voters. Jeffords betrayed not only the Republican Party but also America's voters. Call it the "J.J. option." And Democrats found this entirely acceptable — so they have no high moral ground from which to complain if Sen. Lieberman switches his allegiance to Republicans. Sen. Lieberman's position, however, is far more ethical than was Jeffords'. Lieberman was elected as an independent, not a Democrat, after radical activists stabbed him in the back. He cannot fairly be accused of "jumping" from a ship hijacked by left-wing pirates who already made him walk the gangplank. Lieberman's first duty is to those who voted for him: 30 percent of Connecticut's Democratic voters and 70 percent of its Republican voters. In 1988 Lieberman was first elected to the Senate backed by Connecticut resident William F. Buckley Jr., and other conservatives eager to oust ultraliberal Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker. Lieberman is a socially liberal Democrat who worked in the South for Civil Rights during the early 1960s. In 2006 Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton came to Connecticut to campaign against him. Following eight years of sleaze and scandal during President Bill Clinton's and Vice President Al Gore's administration, Democrats chose Lieberman as Gore's 2000 running mate because the Connecticut senator was the only national Democrat widely recognized for having deep religious faith and high morals. Lieberman, in other words, became the Democratic Party's fig leaf.
Lieberman is an "observant" orthodox Jew and firm supporter of Israel. On Sept. 11, 2001, we all became Israelis, tasting the kind of Islamist terrorism they have faced for more than half a century. Lieberman has been a strong backer of Bush administration efforts to fight this threat.
By 2004 the Democratic Party had moved far left and was turning against Bush anti-terror policies. Moderate Lieberman's brief presidential bid in Democratic primaries gained no traction.
Like their kindred Euro-socialists, some liberal Democrats now seem increasingly tinged by anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bias. The party's presidential nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, pocketed large Muslim campaign contributions from an Iranian middleman. Before a Michigan Muslim group, Kerry criticized Israel's wall to stop terrorist suicide bombers.
Would Lieberman switching sides really matter in a Senate where 60 votes are needed to pass any measure over a filibuster, with the House in Democratic hands, and with President Bush's veto pen?
Yes.
It would restore every Senate committee chairmanship to Republicans, limit partisan investigations aimed at President Bush, and make Bush's judicial and other nominees more likely to win confirmation.
But even without switching, Lieberman is a powerful deterrent.
If Democrats try to cut and run in Iraq, or withdraw U.S. support from Israel, or attempt to hand our government over to the loony left, they face the serious threat that Lieberman could exercise the J.J. option and turn Republican.
"The American people are considering both major political parties to be on a kind of probation," said Lieberman, "because they're understandably angry that Washington is dominated too much by partisan political games, and not enough by problem solving and patriotism." Is Sen. Lieberman's destiny to be the line in the sand that radical partisan Democrats dare not cross, to be the moral saving remnant of America's politics?
Editor's note:
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