A Choice, Not an Echo

John Samples is director of the Center for Representative Government. Patrick Basham is a senior fellow in the Center for Representative Government at the Cato Institute.

Sen. Jeffords (I-Vermont) did the right thing. His decision to leave the GOP and hand control of the Senate to the Democrats is beneficial to the long-term health of the American political system.

In justifying his decision, Jeffords stressed that, "I have not changed my beliefs…I have changed my party label." Opposed to President Bush on "fundamental issues," Jeffords would work against a federal bench dominated by philosophically conservative jurists. And along with most members of the new Senate majority, Jeffords favors larger spending increases than Bush has sanctioned.

Jeffords opposes Bush's moderate across-the-board tax cut on the grounds that, "We can't give all this money back. We have too many high priorities." Specifically, Jeffords wants the government to retain American taxpayers' overpayments in order to further increase education funding, a standard Democratic demand. Jeffords' views on education aren't shared by most Republicans but are embraced by Democrat Edward Kennedy, the new Chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

Belatedly, Jeffords awakened to which side of the ideological divide he's really on. He refers to himself as an "independent." This is inaccurate. Jeffords' views on public policy are shared by tens of millions of well-intentioned, respectable Americans. They're called liberals. Or Democrats.

The Jeffords episode isn't the beginning of partisan switching, nor is it the end. It's merely the latest example of a long-term partisan evolution driven by overarching socioeconomic and technological influences. During this transformation, there's been a gradual erosion of consensual, brokerage-type party politics, a politics characterized by authoritarian urban machines and non-ideological national leadership (e.g., "liberal" John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, enthusiastically cut income taxes, and "conservative" Richard Nixon, a Republican, introduced wage and price controls).

Two budding ideological parties now serve us. On the left is the Democratic Party, committed now more than ever to the idea that expansive government aimed at collective goals should trump individual choices. On the right is the Republican Party, dedicated to limited government and individual rights with a strong admixture of religious faith.

Until recently, this relentless philosophical shakeout of the two parties saw movement primarily from conservative Democrat to Republican; today, it's from moderate Republican to Democrat. But watch this space: There are more partisan shoes still to drop. In the future, there'll be significant losses and gains for both parties.

In the long run, that may be a good thing. For the political marketplace to function as efficiently as possible, the political consumer - the voter - should have real choices. As the shakeout continues, voters will more and more be faced with a choice not only between parties, but also between programs and ideologies. Americans will get, as one presidential candidate famously put it, "a choice, not an echo."

If political parties are becoming more ideologically consistent, the Democrats have reasons to worry. Many in their ranks in both houses of Congress don't really belong in the contemporary Democratic Party, and ideologically most Americans favor individual liberty and limited government.

Jim Jeffords has done his part to give Americans a real political choice. Over to you Sens. Breaux and Miller.