Senators Who Changed Political Parties: Proof D.C. Has Been Politically Conflicted

If more Senators had the guts of Sen. Arlen Specter, there'd likely be a lot more political defections to other parties. But that won't happen when most members of U.S. Congress have already been absorbed into a trap that means capitulation to their party or...well, die. That doesn't necessarily mean literally dying, though the jury might be out for those who loathe politics in general. Certainly a political death of losing their constituents is the main worry of always staying true to a political party, through thick and thin. And if you don't follow your peers, the chance of being run through a thick political ringer is more than unfortunate reality. As it is now, Sen. Specter's move to the Democratic side has already created a snowball of vitriol from his former Republican colleagues.

Certainly if Specter has to deal with the criticisms Joe Lieberman did for turning Independent, he may want to just retire from the Senate. With Republicans being near wanting to strangle any Democrat they encounter on the street of late, anybody who wants to switch from Republican to Democrat (or, sorry to say, conversely when Democrats hold tight to their own) may want to reconsider what the repercussions will be.

Of course, that's the whole problem of why you don't see politicians playing musical chairs with their politics. While many of us who consider ourselves moderates constantly lament the lack of them in D.C., there just might be a lot of closet ones in Congress. Moreover, it may not just be defined as just being a moderate, but rather being something much more complicated: A politically conflicted politician who can't reflect that conflict.

As political philosophy gets more and more complex, making moral choices over what we truly believe in becomes a mental exercise of ethics for a politician who's under pressure to adhere to their static political parties. The rare ones who don't want to live under the pressure of pretending to stand for something they may oppose behind closed doors are only making themselves known on rarer occasions lately. As proof of that, only five members of Congress in the last twenty years have switched political parties while still serving as Senator. As a contrast, there were well over fifteen senators who switched parties starting from the earliest days of America up to the more recent time when extremist views in both parties took precedence over a more balanced philosophy.

As an overall view of American history, though, it's merely twenty-one senators in total to date who managed to switch parties and keep from being found in the trunk of a car or at least being run out of town. Most of them managed to stay respected. And only one in the middle part of the 20^th century managed to become a member of three different parties without being branded a heretic, eccentric or losing his effectiveness as a senator.
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If you think that Oregon has long been a leader in getting controversial laws into the books, then a senator from the state through the 1940's-1960's would have to take the crown of forwarding the act of switching political parties multiple times without fear. Sen. Wayne Morse was actually quite an important political figure already in the early 40's while working in the National Labor Board under the aegis of Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Morse helped FDR continue the New Deal policies that have now become iconic, even though Morse was registered as a Republican. Just about every politician to come out of Oregon in those days was a Republican who usually won a seat in Congress.

Ironically, it was differing philosophies on the economy that persuaded Morse to dig deeper into where he really fell politically. When openly criticizing the Republican economic policies in the late 40's, Republicans turned on him by the early 50's and did the same thing he did to them during the 1952 Republican Convention. Disgusted by this, Morse resigned from the Republican Party before the elections of that year and ended up in one of the most interesting predicaments ever seen in Congress. Not confident enough to list himself a Democrat, he went the Lieberman route of registering as an Independent--only to find himself having no place to sit when Congress convened early the following year.

It's a shame history has likely forgotten this story as a perfect example of how dogmatic Congress already was in an era when political philosophy supposedly wasn't as extreme. With wasted time spent in Congress arguing over where Sen. Morse was supposed to sit, Morse did the right thing: He set up his chair and desk in-between both sides in the aisle.

After more panic attacks over such a thing happening in Congress, Morse finally had to make up his mind which side to sit on so he didn't disrupt business. Choosing to sit on the Democrat side, he waited another year before realizing that he'd been a Democrat (or a moderate one) all along. The Democrats were quasi orgasmic over the whole thing and ultimately were able to take control of Congress during a time when a Republican President was dominate in the White House.

So, in many ways, Sen. Specter is perhaps a form of the late Sen. Wayne Morse from Oregon who died in 1974 while running for re-election under...yes, the Democratic ticket. In similarity, both broke ties with their party when economic differences were at the forefront. They also broke that tie to their party when there was adamancy by each party to hang together, no matter how conflicted one was to everybody except their political colleagues.

Morse certainly had a few losses for switching political parties two different times. He lost various prominent positions because of his confliction until being richly rewarded with new ones later after joining the Democrats. As mentioned, he was also the only senator in the history of Congress to be in all three political brackets. You could say that a few senators long before him did somewhat the same thing if you consider the late 1800's Silver Republicans party to be utterly different from the regular Republican ideology. In addition, the word "Independent" has frequently had either "Democrat" or "Republican" after it for the last 200 years. Morse was the first senator to be labeled as an Independent for two years with nothing else next to it to favor either party.

We need more senators like him, even though Lieberman may have opened a new door toward disrupting the status quo on occasion. Nevertheless, with pressure from both parties to keep a unity or face backlashes, breaking political ties may only happen via those with seniority who can get away with it a little easier. New faces to Congress in the future will face too much pressure not to, which can be psychologically dangerous when there's personal conflict with the political philosophy.

There's likely a lot more political conflict in D.C. long brewing. Seeing those conflicted senators pull up a seat in the center aisle would be an overdue political statement sorely needed for an era where the center is made to look non-existent...

Source:

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/senators_changed_parties.htm#13