U.

Wednesday, May 30, 2001

U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords has spotlighted a fundamental flaw in the way the legislative branch of the United States government does business. By the simple act of changing his party registration, Jeffords could force the entire U.S. Senate to reorganize itself.

Carried to another level, a small handful of people could keep the government in a permanent state of paralysis by shifting, or threatening to shift, their registrations back and forth. They could conduct a pork auction to determine which party would concede the most to have control.

One of the strengths of the U.S. system of self-government has been its stability. The party elected to power every two or four years governs until the next election. Indeed, the control of the Senate has never before shifted between elections, historians said.

Now we are in a period in which a death, a resignation or a change-of-registration could conceivably shift control in the Senate every few months, one way and then the other. Let it be hoped that the 2002 election gives one party or the other a majority with a small margin of comfort. Teetering on the knife’s edge is not a good thing.