Voices of reason?

Four Republicans who could save Clinton

by Nat Winthrop

Four moderate Republicans from New England -- Rhode Island's John Chafee, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and Vermont's Jim Jeffords -- may well play a pivotal role in determining how the Senate conducts the trial of impeached president Bill Clinton. More important, the quartet -- all of whom represent states that voted for Clinton in 1996 -- are among the swing votes the Democrats will need to save the president from being removed from office.

Chafee, 78, is the elder statesman of the group, a former three-term governor whose family has deep roots in Rhode Island politics and history. First elected to the Senate in 1976, Chafee is a fiscal conservative but a liberal on issues such as the environment, health-care reform, abortion, and gay rights.

Chafee made national headlines just before Christmas when several news organizations took some of his comments out of context, reporting that he supports a censure resolution in the Senate. A headline in the Boston Globe on December 22 read CHAFEE BACKS CENSURE AS ALTERNATIVE ON PRESIDENT, but the paper ran a clarification the next day, stating that Chafee "says he feels, ultimately, it may be a viable option but he is not committed to voting for it."

Chafee is now cautious about saying much more: "I believe it is my constitutional duty to approach the president's trial as an impartial juror. Like all other senators, I must hear and weigh the evidence that will be presented before rushing to judgment." However, Chafee did tell the Phoenix that "there's a lot of appeal to the Gorton proposal," a bipartisan plan proposed by senators Slade Gorton (R-Washington) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) in which an abbreviated trial would be followed by test votes on whether each of the articles of impeachment warrants Clinton's removal from office. "A bipartisan solution is key," Chafee says. "You don't want to run up the impeachment flag every time anybody disagrees with the president, so we have to be very careful in how we proceed."

Vermont's Jim Jeffords is generally considered to be the most liberal Republican in the Senate; he votes with Democrats more often than any of his GOP colleagues. Early on, Jeffords advocated for his House colleagues to censure rather than impeach Clinton. But now that the House has acted, he too has become more circumspect about the Senate's role.

"We are to sit as jurors and thus, in deference to the House, we should keep our minds open," Jeffords told the Phoenix. Nevertheless, he has no doubt that the House's obstruction-of-justice count doesn't hold water: "With respect to the Lewinsky matter, there's no private litigation involved, and there's no criminal offense that gets the state involved. So what's the justice being obstructed? There is no justice being obstructed." He compares the situation to impeaching a president for lying under oath about his age.

Jeffords believes it would be legitimate to convict the president if it could be shown that the impeachment and its underlying issues were impeding his ability to govern. However, the senator says that all the evidence -- the November election results, the vibrant economy, Clinton's high ranking in the polls, his international policies and standing -- argues for the president's retention.

Yet Jeffords, like Maine's Susan Collins and most of New England's other GOP senators, says that he wouldn't oppose the calling of witnesses if the House managers can show there is something new to offer. "I don't think we should place any restrictions on information or witnesses that could produce new evidence," Jeffords says, but he cautions that "it would do nothing to further the process" if witnesses merely rehash evidence in the Starr report. This position is consistent with that of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi), who has said he doesn't favor calling witnesses in the Senate trial unless the House makes a convincing case that they are necessary.

Maine's Olympia Snowe also favors an expedited, bipartisan process in the coming weeks. "I don't think people think it's in the best interest of the country" to have the matter drag on, Snowe told the Washington Post last month. "Once we have established the constitutional procedures, if there is a genuine sincerity to work this out in a way that obliterates party lines and partisanship, I believe there is a way to do this."

Snowe won the seat vacated in 1994 by former Democratic majority leader George Mitchell, whom Clinton has proposed as someone who could help broker a Senate censure resolution. "They couldn't find a better person," says Snowe. "He would be a wise choice at a time when Clinton obviously needs it."

Slade Gorton, who favors compromise, points out that "it didn't work as well as anyone would have liked in the House." That's a fact many think is not lost on Trent Lott, a conservative pragmatist who has close ties both to the moderate Jeffords (who is a member of the majority leader's Capitol Hill barbershop quartet, the Singing Senators) and to New Hampshire's conservative Judd Gregg. Lott is well aware that the prosecutorial zeal of the House Republicans worked (in different ways) to cost both Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston their seats as Speaker. Now, with the Senate trial underway, no one really knows what will happen; but it's safe to predict that any resolution will need the support of New England's moderate Republicans. Keep your eye on Chafee, Jeffords, Collins, and Snowe.