President Bush has lost his majority in the Senate 24/5/01

PETER MARSHALL:
They were together, the President and the Senator, and now they're rent asunder. Today Jim Jeffords, the solid and rather modest Senator from Vermont, 26 years in Congress as a Republican, announced he was, as we predicted, jumping ship. He'll become an independent.

SENATOR JAMES JEFFORDS:
Increasingly, I find myself in disagreement with my party. I understand that many people are more conservative than I am, and they form the Republican Party. Given the changing nature of the national party, it has become a struggle for our leaders to deal with me, and for me with them. Looking ahead, I can see more and more instances where I will disagree with the President on very fundamental issues. The issues of choice, the direction of the judiciary, tax and spending decisions, missile defence, energy and the environment. And a host of other issues, large and small.

MARSHALL:
What Jim Jeffords was saying was he can no longer stomach the conservative agenda with which George Bush has opened his Presidency with. It was ten-year, $1.25 trillion tax cuts which proved the final straw. That still gets through, but so much else dear to "Dubya", from oil drilling to Supreme Court appointments, and even Son of Star Wars, is in real jeopardy. For in losing Jim Jeffords, Bush has lost control of the US Senate. Up to now, the Senate has been split right down the middle, 50 seats for either party. But the Vice-President has the casting vote, so control has been with the Republicans. They've chaired all 16 Senate committees. For example, the arch-conservative, Jesse Helms, has had foreign affairs. But no more. Under the new 50-49 arrangement, all committees go to the Democrats. That's crucial, because it's the committees which determine the flow of Bush's legislation, what does and doesn't move. So far, Dubya's been a man in a hurry, unhindered. Jim Jeffords has stopped him in his tracks.

TIM CURRAN:
(ROLL CALL)
President Bush has to start governing from the centre, rather than from a conservative, Republican perspective. He has to take Democrats in Congress into account on every issue he plans to address and wants to make part of his Presidency.

MARSHALL:
Can't Bush get his agenda through by rolling out the "pork barrel", as you call it?

CURRAN:
I'm sure that's tempting. That's traditionally the way that Presidents go, helping Senators get special projects, roads, bridges, recreation centres, in their districts with Federal dollars. It's going to be difficult to do in an environment where he's pledged to limit the government to a 4% increase in spending.

MARSHALL:
So the President's scope for using "pork", in effect Federal bribes, is curtailed by his budget limits. The man who now wields most power in the Senate is the Democrats' leader, Tom Daschle. He's careful not to gloat, and that's tactical. By talking of compromise, he's painting the other side as extreme.

SENATOR TOM DASCHLE:
(DEMOCRAT)
We know we have a divided Government, Republicans in the White House and now Democrats leading the Senate, Republicans in the House. The only way we can accomplish our agenda, the only way that the administration will be able to accomplish their agenda, is if we truly work together in what we'd call a tri- partisan manner. That's my intention.

MARSHALL:
President Bush was in Ohio today. With the Jeffords affair his first real hit since getting to the White House, he must be furious, but restricted himself to saying Jim Jeffords was wrong.

GEORGE W BUSH:
I respect Senator Jeffords. But, respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. Our agenda for reforming America's public schools, providing tax relief for every tax payer, represents the hopes and dreams of America. Our agenda for reforming and modernising our military to defend America and our allies, represents the best hope for peace. I was elected to get things done, and to work with Republicans and Democrats, and we're doing that.

MARSHALL:
While the Senator from Vermont prepares for life outside the party, the President he's left in the lurch will have to adopt a new approach. The matey cajoling bi-partisan Bush needs to be born again, again.

KIRSTY WARK:
I am joined from Washington by two Congressman. First Scott McInnis, a Republicans. The Republicans still control the House but not the Senate. Isn't this a disaster for George Bush so early in his term?

CONGRESSMAN SCOTT McINNIS:
(REPUBLICAN)
Of course it is not a disaster, the President will pass his tax bill either this weekend or very shortly, with a lot of support from the Democrats, bipartisan. Same with the Education Bill that he's got out there. Of course this is not a disaster, there is a shift in the committee structure on the US senate side, but the President will continue his course of action, and continue it on a successful basis.

WARK:
Do you think, Jim Jeffords was principled in what he did?

McINNIS:
Let me tell you, I think there is some confusion in the previous report. The Senator, while I have respect for him, this is not based on Conservative politics. He has been a member of our party for 25 years, He has had plenty of time to walk away, if this was on principle. This is all based on money he is not getting for his Dairy Compact up in the north. This is being played in the media as a Conservative- Liberal battle out here in DC. This is whether they give him a blank cheque, which is what he demanded or he would take a walk. Let him take a walk.

WARK:
Robert Wexler, Is it simply about money?

McINNIS:
Of course it is about the compacts, if he wanted to walk from the party he could have. There are a number of moderates in the party who did not walk with him. A lot of moderates are still there.

WARK:
Robert Wexler, How do you feel about the balance of power being changed because, as Congressman McInnis says, he thinks it is about money?

CONGRESSMAN ROBERT WEXLER:
(DEMOCRAT)
With all due respect to my colleague, this is a train wreck for George W Bush. Previous to two days from now, even though President Bush won by the barest of margins, he in essence, controlled Government. He certainly controlled the House of Representatives, and with Vice- President Cheney's vote, controlled the Senate. He does not control it any more. The apparatus of the Senate is now in the Democratic hands, And what he will be forced to do, and people don't really want to recognise this, but President Bush has dealt with the Congress, the Democrats in the Congress in an arrogant fashion. He is talking to the country in a bi-partisan tone, but Democrats have been by and large shut out. Now he will have to be a true President of bi-partisanship. It will benefit him in the long run, but for now, it is a long big train wreck. You can talk about it not being a disaster, but when you lose the US Senate, it is a big problem for the President. He didn't have to lose it, he didn't lose this at the election box. He lost this because his policies and the way he was running the Government put off a moderate Republican.

McINNIS:
He didn't lose it because he didn't write a cheque for the Dairy Compact. He wanted the Dairy Compact and made demands on missile defence. The President couldn't meet those demands, so he walked.

WARK:
Robert Wexler, answer that particular point from Scott, that it was really about money.

WEXLER:
I'll take senator Jeffords at his word. He said this was a matter of principle, he is a principled man, and has been a part of the Republican Party, for, as my colleague says, more than two decades. And for the first time, he felt the Republican Party with George W Bush as President, has completely eliminated the ability of moderates to participate. If you care about a woman's right to choose, apparently Senator Jeffords feels there's no place in the Republican Party.

McINNIS:
There are other moderates in the party that didn't go with him. We had one moderate, the Senator walked out. There are other moderates in the Senate, and certainly in the House, no-one else followed him. They feel comfortable within the party, this has to do with that Dairy Compact in the north-east.

WARK:
Robert Wexler, let's turn to what will happen now. How are you going to play this? For example, I know that you are keen in gun control legislation. What sort of things will you be pushing ahead on the agenda straight away?

WEXLER:
The Republicans didn't get a mandate in this election, and neither did the Democrats. The Democrats control the Senate, but the Republicans control the House, and President Bush is President. This isn't a mandate for Democrats to run off on every proposal the Democrats have always wanted to push. The bigger reality is that now all of the things that are most conservative about the Bush Presidency will no longer succeed. Bush's judicial appointments that are not moderate have no chance, and is energy policy, the drill, drill, drill, consume energy policy with no conservation, is dead on arrival. Things have dramatically changed for George Bush, and I would suggest one thing, with respect to whether this is about a Dairy Compact. If that's all it was about, then shame on the President, and shame on the Republican Party for losing control of the United States Senate, because they couldn't work something out with their own member.

McINNIS:
You talk about principles, I think the the President exercised principles in saying he wasn't going to give a blank cheque. "Don't hold me hostage by threatening to leave this party, or you get your money for the Dairy Compact. We had a budget we had to keep in mind, but let me go back to what Mr Wexler said. There's no question there's a change here. There will be lots more negotiations. I don't think all the judicial nominees are conservative, but he is correct, I think the President is going to have to steer a moderate course. I think, frankly, he has steered a moderate course. We can judge that by the number of Democrats on the Education Bill, including my colleague here, and how many Democrats we had yesterday in the US Senate that voted for the President's tax bill, before the change. 62, that's 12 Democrats. If it was as conservative as being expressed by my respectful colleague here, those 12 wouldn't have crossed the party line.

WARK:
I have to leave it there. Thank you both.