By Robert Tanner
AP National Writer
Thursday, May 24, 2001; 10:57 a.m. EDT

State lawmakers have shown again and again in recent years that they're not afraid to switch parties and change the balance of political power, even at the risk of voter backlash.

When U.S. Sen. James Jeffords announced his decision Thursday to leave the Republican Party, it was the first time control of the U.S. Senate would flip because a member switched parties, according to historians.

But for the states, it is not unusual. In South Carolina this year, Kentucky in 1999, and Pennsylvania in 1995, lone lawmaker defections gave the GOP control of a chamber or an entire legislature.

Narrowly split legislatures – like the 50-50 tie in the U.S. Senate – bring out heavy pressures to switch.

When the November election left South Carolina's Senate split 23-23, Verne Smith, a conservative, eight-term Democrat from an increasingly Republican district, wound up besieged by GOP lawmakers, who also control the House.

"Boy, nearly all of them" called or encouraged him to switch, he said. Smith decided to leave the Democrats, but neither the pressure nor the promise of a committee chairman's seat swayed him, he said. It was that Democrats were going left while his district was moving right. Smith said he didn't talk to many constituents first.

Jeffords, one of the Republican moderates who have bucked the Bush administration's agenda, went to Vermont to announce his decision "to my people."

Often, the voters welcome a party-switcher back home at the next election. But not always.

In Pennsylvania, the four-term Democrat whose defection in 1995 handed Republicans control of the state House was bounced at the next election.

Tom Stish, worried about "a bomb through the front window," left the state for a Florida trip after his announcement. Democrats complained that GOP contributions to help pay for the trip appeared to be a payoff for his switch. The state already had a Republican Senate and governor at the time.

In the past two years, there were at least eight party-switchers in legislative and statewide offices.

Among them were three Republican state representatives who became Democrats (in South Carolina and Georgia), a Republican state representative in North Carolina who switched to the Reform Party in a failed effort to defeat a GOP opponent, and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura's decision to leave the Reform Party and start the Independence Party.

In Minnesota, state Sen. Charlie Berg has switched five times. He began his 29-year career as an independent, then went GOP, then Democrat, then independent and last year returned to the GOP.

"I've always felt that your first obligation is to your district, then the state, and the party is very distant third," Berg said.

Party defections may be common now, but they're not an old tradition.

"It's much more a product of the post-World War (II) era," said political science professor Terry Madonna. "It's weakening parties, voters just simply aren't much interested in party politics anymore."

In earlier years, parties were fueled by patronage, and maintained much stronger loyalty among politicians and voters alike, said Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

One lawmaker in Washington state, a conservative Democrat in a narrowly divided state Senate, said the close splits in Congress and many states reflects the public's balance.

For state Sen. Tim Sheldon, that translates into power. He likens himself to a "fulcrum," balancing the two sides of the 25-24 Democratic Senate.

"You can form a lot of coalitions and make very good policy," said Sheldon, a fiscal conservative-social moderate from timber country in Potlatch. "This legislature can't go too far to the left or too far to the right, which is good."

After the November election, he was pressured by the GOP to switch. Sheldon stayed with the Democrats but occasionally joins with all 24 Republicans to create a temporary majority and force action on legislation.

In his view, Jeffords, becoming an independent, is taking the best step.