Jim Jeffords

Because some weird Senate history, but there was a period in 2001 and 2002 where the Democrats controlled the Senate, even though the Republicans had got elected.

Because Republican Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont had become increasingly pissed off with the George W. Bush administration over things like education and taxes and the environment and health care, stuff like that.

And so on May 24th, 2001, so this is way before 9-11, Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party and became an independent, and he decided to caucus with the Democrats.

Now, at the time, the Senate was 50 Republicans, 50 Democrats.

And so when he decided to caucus with the Democrats, it meant that the Democrats got control of the Senate.

And look, this has happened in the past.

In 2001, the republicans in a tied senate republicans bullied vermont senator jim jeffords because he voted against bush on the tax cuts and he left the party became an independent caucus with democrats and made the democrats the give the democrats the majority you know less than a year after bush was elected and so we do not want to have the same thing happen to us so like i'm not telling anyone who lives in pennsylvania not to be mad at jeff we actually should but the people uh in positions of power in this in our party and influence of the platforms Just we we don't want to switch parties.

We don't want to do it.

And look, channel your anger into like we did with Kyrsten Sinema.

And I'm not sure if it was eight votes or nine votes in dissent.

I know that Jim Jeffords, a Republican, was one of them.

I know that Ted Kennedy was against it.

But the people who were against it voted correctly in my estimation.

And if you go back, to the day, and I'm not sure if it was eight votes or nine votes in dissent.

I know that Jim Jeffords, a Republican, was one of them.

I know that Ted Kennedy was against it.

But the people who were against it voted correctly in my estimation.

And look, this has happened in the past.

In 2001, The Republicans in a tied Senate, Republicans bullied Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords because he voted against Bush on the tax cuts and he left the party, became an independent caucus with Democrats and gave the Democrats the majority less than a year after Bush was elected.

And so we do not want to have the same thing happen to us.

So I'm not telling anyone who lives in Pennsylvania not to be mad at Jeff, and we absolutely should, but the people in positions of power in this, in our party, have influence over the platforms.