Senate’s GOP Mavericks Hold Balance of Power

For straying from Republican orthodoxy, they have been ostracized, berated and even punished by their conservative Senate colleagues.

While promoting campaign finance reform, Susan Collins of Maine was never sure if any fellow Republicans would sit at her table during their weekly lunches.

James M. Jeffords of Vermont felt their wrath while standing fast as the lone GOP sponsor of President Clinton’s health care reform plan.

For Maine’s Olympia J. Snowe, it’s her support of abortion rights and increased funding for student loans that get her in trouble. For John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, it’s the environment.

With the Clinton presidency at stake in the impending Senate impeachment trial, these four GOP moderates from New England are back in the spotlight--and holding the balance of power.

Without their backing, it is inconceivable that Senate Republicans could garner the 67 votes--two-thirds of the Senate--necessary to oust Clinton from office. And, given the Republicans’ 55-45 majority in the chamber, Democrats would need their votes to cobble together the simple-majority vote it would take to abort a full-blown trial or censure the president.

But unlike Republican moderates in the House, most of whom ended up voting for impeachment after receiving tremendous pressure from the right, the Senate GOP moderates are largely buffered from such forces.

“A number of these senators may be impervious to the kinds of threats that some House members got,” said Roger H. Davidson, a University of Maryland congressional scholar.

“They have little to fear from the right wing,” he said, adding that these moderates are likely to vote their conscience regardless of the dictates of the Senate GOP leadership.

Still, given their maverick instincts and the volatile politics of impeachment, it would be premature and probably a fool’s errand to predict how the Senate moderates will vote--notwithstanding the fact that they often side with Democrats and Clinton on controversies.

Censure Needs to Be More Than a ‘Scolding’

Chafee underscored that point last week, saying in an interview that he would not be satisfied with a simple censure of Clinton, something most Senate Democrats are promoting in lieu of a full trial.

“If we follow a censure route, I’ve always felt that there’s got to be more in there than just a scolding,” Chafee said. “There’s got to be some kind of punishment . . . , something along the lines of a fine.”

That approach, however, runs counter to warnings by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) that it would be unconstitutional to fine a chief executive.

Like most senators, Chafee said he has not reached a decision on how he thinks the impeachment controversy should end.

In a separate interview, Collins displayed her independent streak as well.

On the one hand, she said, “the evidence clearly suggests the president did lie under oath. The question I’m struggling with is, does that reach the level of an impeachable offense?”

At the same time, Collins challenged Lott’s reluctance to call witnesses to testify in the Senate trial, saying that testimony from Monica S. Lewinsky and some other key figures may be the only way to resolve factual discrepancies that go to the heart of whether Clinton obstructed justice in his efforts to conceal his affair with the former intern.

While Chafee, Collins, Jeffords and Snowe sometimes pay a price in the Senate for defying the party line, their constituents hardly seem to mind.

Take Chafee, who is perhaps more likely than any other Republican senator to back Democratic priorities.

That tendency cost him dearly in 1990, when his colleagues ousted him from his post as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the No. 3 spot in the leadership hierarchy.

Nevertheless, the adroit Chafee has remained a key player on budget, health and environmental issues. And in 1994, a whopping 65% of Rhode Island voters sent him back to the Senate for a fourth term.

Jeffords enraged fellow Republicans in 1994 by championing universal health insurance coverage, the cornerstone of Clinton’s massive reform plan. He even actively campaigned for it, often alongside First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who supervised the plan’s development.

The two-term Vermont senator also joined the largely Democratic voting blocs that supported increasing the minimum wage and opposed Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Such independence may explain Jeffords’ popularity in Vermont, where the other senator and the governor are Democrats and the lone congressman is a socialist.

But on Capitol Hill, Jeffords’ positions in 1997 threatened his ascension to the chairmanship of the Labor and Human Resources Committee, a position saved only after senatorial deference to seniority prevailed.

And it isn’t only the moderates who must be wary of the instinct among hard-liners to lash out at fellow Republicans who stray.

Conservative Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) was targeted by a group of young turks who tried to strip him of certain powers as chairman of the Judiciary Committee for a variety of perceived sins that included befriending liberal Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and teaming up with him on legislation.

Something of a maverick himself, Hatch was the first GOP senator to openly, and repeatedly, promote some alternative to impeachment by pointing out that there seems no way that 67 senators would vote to remove Clinton from office.

Moderates ‘Control the Balance of Power’

Collins, a first-term senator, said she was pleasantly surprised to learn how Senate moderates of both parties “really control the balance of power.”

That’s because 60 votes are often needed before Senate business can proceed.

“Being a moderate Republican has enabled me to have more of an impact than I might otherwise have. . . . We can really control the outcome on important issues,” said Collins.

She also has learned the importance of forging personal relationships with her conservative GOP colleagues. That way, Collins said, “people tend to be more forgiving.”

When Collins, Chafee, Jeffords and Snowe meet for lunch on most Wednesdays to discuss common issues and strategies, they usually are joined by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), another maverick.

Specter has steadfastly opposed impeachment, arguing that Clinton should be criminally prosecuted if he committed perjury during grand jury testimony--after he leaves office in 2001.

The private lunches, Collins said, have been “a source of strength as we go through some of these issues.”

Like Jeffords and Chafee, both Collins and Snowe--also a first-term senator--come from a state with independent-minded voters. Maine has a governor who is an independent as well as the highest percentage of voters who backed Reform Party candidate Ross Perot for president in 1992.

Collins and Snowe both support abortion rights. Collins also opposes capital punishment, although she supports repeal of the ban on certain semiautomatic assault-style weapons.

With the impeachment trial looming, many Democrats have targeted the GOP moderates in hopes of forging an exit strategy that would end the controversy.

“I think you’re going to find people seeking a bipartisan solution here,” Chafee said. “And I don’t think it’ll just be the moderates.”

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Four New England GOP Moderates

Susan Collins: This Maine lawmaker supported campaign finance reform. She says: “The evidence clearly suggests the president did lie under oath. The question I’m struggling with is, does that reach the level of an impeachable offense?”

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James M. Jeffords: This Vermont senator enraged fellow Republicans in 1994 by championing universal health insurance coverage, the cornerstone of President Clinton’s massive reform plan. He even actively campaigned for it.

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Olympia J. Snowe: This senator, also from Maine, supports abortion rights and increased funding for student loans. She often meets with the others for lunch on Wednesdays to discuss some common issues and strategies.

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John H. Chafee: This Rhode Island senator is a supporter of environmental causes. “If we follow a censure route, I’ve always felt that there’s got to be more in there than just a scolding,” he says.