Senator switches parties, shakes up Congress

WASHINGTON – On a day of upheaval beneath the Capitol dome, Democrats snared control of the Senate on the strength of a party defection yesterday and pledged to temper President Bush's agenda while advancing their own. "I can no longer" remain a Republican, said Vermont Sen. James Jeffords in a personal declaration of independence.

"We intend to govern" in a spirit of fairness, said Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority-leader-in-waiting and the nation's highest-ranking Democrat. "We can't dictate to them, nor can they dictate to us," he said of the GOP.

Bush, suddenly confronted with a Democratic-controlled Senate, said he respected Jeffords, but "couldn't disagree more," with his charge that the administration was too conservative.

While ducking blame for Jeffords' defection, White House advisers acknowledged that the political landscape will change dramatically. Bush will now work harder than ever to court Democrats in the short term and help elect Republicans to Congress in 2002, they said.

The Republican leader, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, said he expected no change in his party's leadership. But there was some sentiment for a shift in style if not personnel. "We need to take some inventory here," said Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, "and maybe make some adjustments."

Democrats predicted a profound change when Jeffords' move becomes effective in early June. "We will be acting and they will be reacting instead of the opposite," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said of the Republicans.

His days as majority leader dwindling, Lott, R-Miss., began hustling several of Bush's nominations to confirmation, including the controversial choice of Ted Olson to become solicitor general.

But the power was already flowing to the soft-spoken Daschle, 53 and six years the Democratic leader. Democratic aides said he wanted to let Olson come to a vote now rather than have a partisan floor fight in his party's early days in the majority.