Jim Jeffords Thanks Again Jim Bumpersticker

The Jim Jeffords For Governor campaign camper was headed up U.S. 2 toward East Montpelier in the summer of 1972 with the candidate backside the wheel.

"He well-nigh drove off the road," recalled Bruce Post of Essex, who was aboard the camper equally a just-out-of-college campaign volunteer. "He was the world'southward worst driver."

What Mail also remembers from that day is that Jeffords, Vermont's chaser general at the time, telling him almost a determination Jeffords had fabricated to requite no special treatment to a powerful Republican who had run afoul of Vermont's environmental laws.

"He told me that day, 'It might price me my political career, but it's not going to cost me my political conscience,' " Post remembered Mon, the solar day Jeffords died.

Jeffords did lose the primary, but he went on to serve seven terms in the U.S. House and three in the Senate. In 2001, his censor led him to leave the GOP, a stunning move that shifted control of the bedroom to the Democrats.

Monday, Jeffords died presently after seven a.m. at Knollwood, a retirement abode for military machine veterans in Washington, D.C. He was lxxx and the final Republican to hold federal office elected from Vermont.

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"While nosotros are saddened by our father's passing, we have comfort in the knowledge that he lived a full life, from the hills of Vermont to the halls of Congress," Laura and Leonard Jeffords, the senator's son and daughter, said in a argument. "We will miss his kindness, his good humor, and his generosity of spirit."

Jeffords, afflicted with Alzheimer's disease, had been in declining health and had lived at Knollwood since retiring from his Senate seat in 2006. Jeffords was a veteran of the Navy and the Navy Reserve, but never served in gainsay. Jeffords' wife, Elizabeth Daley Jeffords, died in 2007.

News of Jeffords' decease Mon morn, first reported by the Burlington Free Press, rapidly spread across the land and the nation.

"Jim never lost the fiercely independent spirit that fabricated Vermonters, and people across America, trust and respect him," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

"Whatever the issue — whether it was protecting the environment, supporting Americans with disabilities, or whether to authorize the war in Republic of iraq — Jim voted his principles, even if it sometimes meant taking a lonely or unpopular stance."

In Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin mourned Jeffords' death. Flags at public buildings beyond the state were lowered at one-half-staff and volition remain and then through Sat.

"The passing of Senator Jim Jeffords will be felt throughout Vermont and our country," Shumlin said in a statement. "We need more than like Senator Jeffords. My heart goes out to his children and extended family."

The maverick

Jeffords's bohemian political instincts served in him good stead as he navigated Vermont's shifting political currents over 40 years, emphasizing his moderate positions as the state leaned increasingly toward more liberal, Democratic positions.

Every bit a Business firm member, he was the only Republican to vote against President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts in 1981. In 1991, he voted confronting George H.Westward. Bush-league'southward nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. He supported President Bill Clinton's health care reform and, in 1999, voted confronting his impeachment.

"He was a partner in our work for Vermont, and he was a friend," Sen. Patrick Leahy said of Jeffords in a argument. "He was a Vermonter through and through, fatigued to political life to brand a divergence for our state and nation. Office of his legacy volition also stand as an enduring affiliate of the Senate'south history."

Leahy and Jeffords both won their first elections to federal office in 1974 and were rivals for a time. They grew closer over the years every bit they worked on dairy problems and others important to Vermont.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who won the election to replace Jeffords in 2006, said Jeffords was a common-sense Vermonter who accomplished a lot.

Sanders toyed with running against Jeffords in 2000 but decided confronting it and said Monday he would have passed on challenging Jeffords had Jeffords run for re-election in 2006.

"Vermonters admired him because of his easygoing and down-to-earth qualities, and because of his obvious and potent love of the state and the Vermont style of life," Sanders said. "He was an effective champion of education, disability rights, the environment and the arts — and millions of Americans have benefited from his efforts."

Rep. Peter Welch, in an interview, spoke of how Jeffords and his wife helped him during his successful run for the House in 2006, and so in Welch's early on months as a freshman congressman.

"He spoke softly but got a lot done," Welch said of Jeffords' career. "There are colleagues of his in the House who still recall him with great respect."

Former Republican Gov. Jim Douglas said Jeffords "will be long remembered equally a Vermonter who gave his all and his best in every flavour of his storied career. As a friend, I will miss him dearly."

Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott said he fashioned his career after the example set by Jeffords. "He did what he felt was right, not what he felt would make him popular," Scott said.

The switch

Jeffords' conclusion to become an contained in 2001 rocked the nation. His move changed the balance of power in the Senate, which had been l Republicans and 50 Democrats.

The motion cost his GOP colleagues their committee chairmanships and, for Jeffords, the loss of several lifelong friendships.

"I have changed my party label, but I have not changed my beliefs," Jeffords said in his May 24, 2001, voice communication at a jam-packed Radisson Hotel in Burlington where he announced the switch.

"Indeed, my determination is well-nigh affirming the principles that take shaped my career. I hope that the people of Vermont will understand it. I hope in time that my colleagues will also. I am confident that information technology is the right decision."

The motion catapulted Jeffords to rock-star national prominence, praised by Democrats and vilified by Republicans.

He wrote later that fifty-fifty members of his family opposed his determination. Sen. Trent Lott, R-La., and a fellow member of the Singing Senators quartet along with Jeffords, fumed that Jeffords had carried out a "coup of one."

In the aftermath, Jeffords appeared on the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines in the same week. He besides was the subject of several death threats, requiring required him to receive Capital Hill police protection for a time.

Dorsum home, he was treated every bit a apartment-out hero. His decision to leave the GOP spawned a pop "Thanks, Jim" bumper sticker and a special-edition beer called "Jeezum Jim," a reference to his small nature and Vermonty accent.

"I have never been prouder of anything I've done in my life than being with him at that time, the time preceding the annunciation and the fourth dimension later that," said Eric Smulson, Jeffords' spokesman for 15 years. "How he handled himself, how he stood for his principles. He was a great statesman, a cracking Vermonter, but an fifty-fifty amend person."

Others, including close friends and some Vermont Republican leaders, were distraught well-nigh the 2001 decision.

"I was very upset over it," said James Johnston of Montpelier, a former Jeffords campaign adviser and close personal friend. "But I know he had good reason to practise information technology at the time."

Johnston became emotional describing the loss of his old friend.

"I guess I knew this mean solar day was coming," he said, choking up every bit he spoke. "I'm non so sure I'm ready to deal with it."

Jeffords afterward wrote two books reflecting on his controversial move: a 2001 explanation of his conclusion titled "My Declaration of Independence" and a 2003 memoir, "An Independent Human being."

A political life

Jeffords, the son of a Vermont Supreme Court justice, grew upward in Rutland, studied at Yale Academy, received his constabulary degree from Harvard University and entered politics in 1966, winning a race for state Senate from Rutland County.

Two years later, he was elected attorney general, and soon he became embroiled in a fight with International Paper'south plant in Ticonderoga, Northward.Y., regarding the discharge of mercury-laden sludge into Lake Champlain.

Jeffords ran for governor in 1972, just many in the party resented his liberal positions on the environment and other matters, and he lost a bitter primary battle to Luther Hackett, a business-oriented Republican.

"He took it fine," said Bruce Post, recalling his fourth dimension as a volunteer with the Jeffords for Governor campaign. "I don't recollect he was bitter or annihilation."

Hackett lost to Democrat Tom Salmon in the full general election. 2 years afterward, Jeffords won the country'south lone U.S. House seat when incumbent Rep. Richard Mallory ran for U.South. Senate.

Jeffords initially lived in a camper in Washington after taking the House seat. He went on to win six Firm re-election contests, then won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1988 when Sen. Robert T. Stafford, R-Vt., another Republican moderate, retired.

Jeffords was a consistent champion of education, helping to pass the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act as a freshman House member and becoming then immersed in efforts to support dairy farmers that he was dubbed "Mr. Dairy."

He also worked behind the scenes to help Soviet dissidents Alexander Solzhenitsyn by secretly arranging Solzhenitzyn'south motion to Cavendish, where the author lived for 18 years before returning Russia. Jefford also aided Soviet dissident Alexander Ginzburg later he was expelled from Russia in 1979.

During the Reagan years, Jeffords fought the president'south plans to cut back on environmental regulations and lower taxes. In 1987, he was the only Republican Firm member to vote with Democrats to laissez passer a $12 billion tax increase. The measure passed the Firm by a single vote.

Surveys of his votes by liberal and conservative groups determined he leaned slightly toward liberal positions, and Jeffords continued to irritate GOP leaders.

He supported gay-rights legislation, voted for a gun-command measure after saying he opposed it and introduced a bill to force ability producers to lower their emissions.

Opinions are divided on what caused him to finally determine to leave the Republican Party. Soon before he fabricated the decision, he voted against President George Due west. Bush'south budget, saying it was too big on tax cuts and undercut spending on education, child care, veterans and the environment.

Jeffords likewise might accept been irked that the White House had not invited him to an effect celebrating the Vermont winner of the teacher of the twelvemonth, even though Jeffords was chairman of chairman of the Senate didactics commission.

"Looking ahead, I tin meet more and more instances where I'll disagree with the president on very fundamental problems — the issues of choice, the management of the judiciary, tax-and-spending decisions, missile defense, energy and the environment, and a host of other issues, large and small," Jeffords said in the oral communication announcing his decision.

Jeffords, who had just been re-elected to the Senate in 2000, vowed to run for re-election in 2006 and repeated that exclamation until 2005, when he abruptly scheduled a news conference at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in South Burlington to announce he would leave the Senate at the terminate of 2006.

"I am feeling the aches and pains that come when yous accomplish 70," he said in his speech. "My memory fails me on occasion, but Liz would probably argue that this has been going on the concluding 50 years."

Uncharacteristically, he took no questions at the news conference, and appeared tired and unsteady on his feet.

Jeffords' funeral is set for eleven a.m. Fri at Grace Congregational United Church of Christ in Rutland.

Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or shemingway@freepressmedia.com. Follow Sam on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SamuelHemingway.

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Source: https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/politics/2014/08/18/james-jeffords-dies/14229425/

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