In the wake of Vermont Senator James Jeffords' decision last Thursday to defect from his Republican colleagues, the area's political afficionados have already begun to consider its impact.
Beyond the shifting of the Senate majority from the Republicans to the Democrats, Jeffords' new independent status is seen by many to symbolize larger rifts within the GOP.
"I appreciate his going to be an independent," said Fels Center of Government lecturer and former U.S. Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky. "He wasn't power-happy, he didn't want to become a Democrat, he just wanted to show the Republicans that they're not listening to the moderates in the [Republican] Party."
During his 26 years in Washington, first as a Representative and then as a Senator, Jeffords cultivated an image of a non-party line Republican. His defections from the standard party stance include supporting abortion and gay rights, as well as opposing efforts to impeach former President Bill Clinton.
When he announced his decision in Burlington, Vermont, Jeffords said that "given the changing nature of the national [Republican] party, it has become a struggle for our leaders to deal with me and for me to deal with them."
Margolies-Mezvinsky said if the Republicans had not been "extreme" when they took control of the Senate in 1994, this Senate upheaval would most likely not have occurred.
"They were behaving as if they had a mandate," Margolies-Mezvinsky, a Democrat, said of the Republican Party.
She added that many on Capitol Hill were saying that Republican Senate majority leader Trent Lott "was arrogant beyond anything that they had expected him to be."
With their policies leaning ever more to the right since President Bush took office, the Republicans did not have a method of dealing with their party's centrists.
"This isn't a Parliamentary system in that there isn't a kind of punishment for people who don't vote with your party," said Political Science professor Jerome Maddox, who studies the American legislative process.
Political Science department Chairman Jack Nagel added that "instead of winning [Jeffords] over or intimidating him into complying, they lost him all together, which looks pretty dumb in this situation."
The implications of Jeffords' move means that Democrats will now assume the role of leadership of the Senate legislative committees, which determine what laws make it down to the Senate floor to be voted upon.
"Having control of the Senate gives the Democrats the ability to control the pace," Maddox said. "They will be able to manage the agenda... in a way that will make it difficult to make things happen rapidly."
This could pose trouble for Bush as he attempts to pass his agenda. Although his $1.35 trillion tax cut package recently cleared the Senate, other legislative components -- such as those dealing with the environment, missile defense and faith-based charities -- will likely be a much harder sell once more liberal Democrats take over the Senate's commanding seats.
One of Pennsylvania's two Republican Senators, Arlen Specter -- who will lose two chairmanship roles when the Democrats assume power on June 5 -- underscored the implications of the switch by calling it a "big, big, big matter."
Specter, who himself changed from Democrat to Republican a number of years ago before running to be Philadelphia district attorney, said he was concerned other Senators might have a change of heart.
"The concern I have is that there will be many moderates across America who will say that if the Party is not for Jim Jeffords," then it's not for them either, Specter said.
In his remarks, Jeffords acknowledged the impact that his decision would have on the nation, as well as his colleagues and friends. But he said that he "was not elected to this office to be something that [he is] not," and that he had "no expectation" of leaving the Republican Party when he was reelected last fall.
Even though this may anger some Vermont voters, Maddox does not see a cause for alarm.
"[Jeffords] should be in fine standing next time he runs for office," Maddox said, adding that modern Senate races are more candidate-oriented than party-oriented. And since Vermont already has another independent Congressman, Representative Bernard Sanders, Jeffords' constituents will not find his move "odd or novel."
Margolies-Mezvinsky also did not see Jeffords' decision -- with its huge political ramifications --Eas extreme, having been through a similar experience herself. Despite representing a highly Republican southeastern Pennsylvania district, she voted in favor of passing Clinton's 1994 budget plan.
"You can't frame it, you can't wrap your arms around it because so much is happening at one time," Margolies-Mezvinsky said, describing her own experience battling the political juggernaut. "I know that he will look back on it and say that this was the most difficult decision that he ever made, but that it was the right thing to do."
