The last words of the quintessential act of American rebellion, the Declaration of Independence, are “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont recently bolted the GOP to give Democrats the control of the Senate by one vote. Jeffords’s honor may have remained intact with this admittedly smaller act of rebellion, but likely, the prospects for his life and fortune, far from being at risk, stood to be enhanced. You may give Jeffords credit for sincerity, but certainly not for courage. Jeffords would have been courageous if he had switched when Republicans controlled the Senate and the move may have cost him politically.
Careful examination by groups as diverse as the American Taxpayers Union and Americans for Democratic Action shows that Senate voting records really do form a bi-model distribution. Democrats, even Conservative ones, tend to vote one way, and Republicans, even Liberal ones, tend to vote another way. Even purported Democratic Conservatives like John Breaux of Louisiana very often vote with their more Liberal Democratic compatriots. There are a handful of Republicans, most noticeably Jeffords, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, and Olympia Snowe from Maine, who really do wander the barren and dangerous no man’s land of “moderation.” Jeffords’s voting record could really put him honorably in either party, but he would by no means be a mainstream Democrat. It will be interesting to see if Jeffords’s voting record changes now as a declared Independent.
Jeffords is personally popular in his own state so party affiliation provides at best only a slight advantage or impediment with Vermont voters. However, quitting the GOP and voting with Democrats gives Jeffords some important advantages. Term limit restrictions on committee chairs would have deprived Jeffords of the chair of the education committee. Because of his crucial switch, he was able to negotiate with Democrats for a critical environmental committee chairmanship. Just think of it, an Independent, selected to chair a Senate committee.
Jeffords argues that President George Bush is more Conservative as a President that he ran as a candidate. It is unclear what particular part of the Bush platform, his tax cut or his education initiatives surprised Jeffords. Bush’s legislative program is pretty much what he promised in his campaign. Bush was after all a “compassionate Conservative.” What did Jeffords expect, a Liberal?
Much is made of the fact that Bush neglected to invite Jeffords to a White House ceremony honoring a Vermont teacher as a small slap on the wrist for working against the Bush tax plan. If such a small act would cause Jeffords to switch political parties, it would imply a sorry petulance inconsistent with the dignity Jeffords wishes to project.
A more plausible reason for switching is that his political leverage is greatest now. As a Republican, he was just one member of a party led from the White House. The Democratic power base, by contrast, is now the Senate. If Strom Thurmond, straddling one hundred years of age, were to become incapacitated and be replaced by a Democrat selected by a Democratic governor, Jeffords would loose leverage in negotiations to switch parties. Sure, the Democrats would have welcomed his abandonment of the GOP, but they would have had to make fewer concessions to him given the majority they already would have.
When Senator Phil Gramm switched from a Democrat to a Republican, he resigned and submitted his name to the Texas voters for approval under the auspices of his adopted party. When Senator Ben Nighthorse-Campbell rose from a Democrat to a Republican, he, like Jeffords, who descended in the opposite direction, did not bother to resubmit his name for voter approval. It should be noted that when Nighthorse-Campbell switched, current Democratic leader Tom Daschle criticized Nighthorse-Campbell for not doing the “honorable” thing and calling for a special election. Neither Nighthorse-Campbell nor Jeffords did anything disreputable in leaving their parties, but certainly, Gramm has set the standard for party-switching honor.
The loss of the Senate is surely an important set back for Republicans. However, Democrats may find (as Republicans have) that it is often easier to be the party in opposition than to labor under the responsibilities of leadership. In addition, if the Senate proves too obstructionist it may become a convenient political target for Republicans. Democrats should be careful what they wish for, lest they get it.
A Place in the Square
Sunday, May 20th, 2001Students from a North Carolina Christian school were recently visiting the White House. During a respite, students joined hands and began a prayer on behalf of the President. After a short while, the Secret Service broke up the prayer and reportedly told the group to “take it outside.” Perhaps the moment of prayer was slowing the progress of the tour group or perhaps the Secret Service was just awkward and did not know what to do. The scene was an inconsequential little incident, but it may serve to remind us how uncomfortable religion in public places makes many feel in what Stephen Carter has called the “culture of disbelief.”When Carter wrote the Culture of Disbelief in 1993, the Christian Right, at least the part typified by Pat Buchanan’s speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention, convinced some that churches were conspiring to institute a theocracy. Religion, many contemporary Americans believe, ought to be treated as a hobby indulged on Sunday mornings, with no real place in serious public discussion. Stephen Carter is a political Liberal and religious believer who, by contrast, laments that religion has been virtually eliminated from the public square, denuding public discussion of an important source of wisdom. When people of faith speak, people squirm.
The first freedom protected by the First Amendment is freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is different and distinct from freedom of speech. It is not just freedom of conscience. The First Amendment protects religious institutions from the state.
The worst political outcome is tyranny and one way to prevent tyranny is to have different and independent centers of authority. Religion is one such center. Religion and spirituality are at their best when they act in resistance. Stephen Carter calls religion a “bulwark against state authority” and suggests that “the idea of religion as an independent moral force … is crucial …to the role of religions as intermediate institutions to which citizens owe a separate allegiance.”
In 1990, the Roman Catholic Archbishop John Cardinal O’Connor warned that Catholic public officials who supported abortion rights might be formally separated from the church, i.e., excommunicated. The action was considered an inappropriate intrusion of religious belief into public debate. Stephen Carter cites New York University law professor Burt Neborne as arguing, “When you accept public office, you’re not a Catholic, you’re not a Jew. You’re an American.” Carter argues it is possible to be both a person of faith and in public office.
Carter contends that Liberals cannot, on the one hand, argue that religious leaders have no business becoming involved in public policy issues, when they did not complain when religious leaders supported positions they favored. There was no claim by Liberals that religions should mind their own business when the Catholic Church in the 1950s threatened to excommunicate public officials who supported segregation. Liberals did not object when Catholic bishops supported the ill-fated nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s. Liberals did not oppose the Southern Baptist Church when it nurtured and supported the civil rights movement. If you accept the legitimacy of Rev. Jesse Jackson in the public square, Rev. Pat Robertson cannot be excluded because of his faith perspective.
Carter’s most trenchent argument is that government has a positive obligation not just to be neutral with respect to religion, but also to be deferential to and accommodate religious observance. When otherwise reasonable legislation comes into conflict with personal religious practice, Carter argues that the state should have to show a compelling interest before restricting such a practice. In a relatively rare act of deference, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court agreed the state interest in the education of children was not superior to belief by the Amish that they should remove their children from school after the 8th grade. More often, such deference has not been shown. In Employment Division v. Smith, the Court did not respect the rights of members of the Native American Church to use the controlled substance peyote, a religious practice that predates the United States. There is probably not a little religious, let us say “insensitivity,” in the failure to recognize that state should not have prevented the “free exercise of religion” in that case.
If we expect people to be true to their conscience, we must accept that sometimes religiosity informs that conscience. This represents healthy respect for plurality in a democracy. Some people are thoroughly spiritual. They cannot and ought not be asked to separate the core of what they are in exchange for the right to be seriously listened to in the public square.
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