In mid-May 2001, my Roll Call column was about Republicans and the man who was about to leave their party, Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.). In it, I reminded Republicans about the precedent of Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

Resident Scholar Norman J. Ornstein

Democrats and the Clinton White House had decided to single out Shelby, then a Democrat, for punishment after his apostasy on several votes. After some petty steps (such as giving Shelby only one ticket to a White House celebration for Alabama’s NCAA football champions) and one grand threat (moving a number of NASA jobs out of Huntsville, Ala.), Shelby switched to the GOP, teaching the Democrats a big lesson.

At the time I wrote the Jeffords piece, history was repeating itself: The Bush White House refused to invite Jeffords to a White House ceremony honoring the teacher of the year, a Vermonter, and was making noises about killing the New England Dairy Compact. I warned Republicans that they were heading down a path that could lead to Jeffords quitting the GOP. It happened a week later.

I had no inside information about Jeffords--just that gut feeling that arrogance and stupidity were in the air. There was, of course, one difference between Shelby and Jeffords: Jeffords’ defection changed the majority in the Senate. As the philosopher Forrest Gump said, "Stupid is as stupid does."

That thought came to mind while watching Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) rip into Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) on ABC’s "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" during the recess. Kerry’s comments followed on the heels of demands in a number of left-wing blogs that Democrats sanction Lieberman for his apostasy on Iraq, stripping him of seniority and blocking him from leadership positions on committees. Cooler heads, including that of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), have prevailed. But we can expect a growing drumbeat in favor of lashing out at Lieberman, possibly including other presidential candidates joining the cry to curry favor with the left.

Lieberman continues to maintain a significant lead in the polls in Connecticut. Running as an Independent is always a bit dicey, but less so in Connecticut, which has many registered independents. Ultimately, Lieberman is more likely than not to win. And Democrats are likely to make significant gains in the Senate, possibly coming within one seat of a majority, or even winning a majority by a single seat. Could they possibly be so stupid as to jeopardize that majority by pulling a Shelby or a Jeffords? The answer should be, "Of course not." But to anyone who has watched the Democratic Party for decades, the answer is, "Well, maybe."

Consider the House, where Democrats have a better-than-even chance of winning their first majority in 12 years. If it happens, it will be by a narrow margin, possibly a seat or two. Yet even as that prospect loomed a few months back, Rep. John Murtha (Pa.) announced that he would challenge House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) for the position of Majority Leader if Democrats do win the majority. While he later dropped his open campaign for the post, the challenge remains in force. It already has created divisions, and the attendant backstabbing and disunity, that come with leadership challenges. For a party that hopes to win back the majority and keep it, the Murtha move was incredibly foolish.

The Jeffords flub aside, Republicans have shown remarkable loyalty and discipline during their dozen years of majority status. When President Bush won the White House, his House Republicans, with a precarious margin of six votes out of 435, managed to operate as if they were a parliament, hanging together to avoid the fate of hanging separately. The morning after Bush was declared the winner, virtually every House Republican woke up thinking about how the party could maintain its unity.

If the Democrats win the House on Nov. 7, by contrast, 50-odd Democrats will wake up on Nov. 8 thinking, "This is great--I can blackmail them for anything!"

During the Democrats’ 40-year run in the House majority, they never had a razor-thin margin. After the first two Democratic Congresses during that period, the Republicans never held more than 192 seats, leaving the Democrats with at least a 25-seat cushion. Discipline and unity never have been the party’s culture, in either the House or the Senate.

Now, that is not all bad. Having robust debate and independent thinking and voting is, on balance, more positive than negative. The GOP hyper-unity led to many bad policies, and it often took disastrous processes to achieve it.

Still, Democrats in both chambers have to think through carefully the challenge of governing in the majority if they are to be successful. They will need leadership that is inclusive, that does not single out Members for punishment because they are rivals to leaders or because they have different policy views than the majority of their majority. But they also need far more party loyalty than they have achieved in the past.

Leaders will have to try to persuade Members that it is in their own self-interest to stick together on key votes, both on procedures and policy, while also opening the process to debate and being prepared to lose some battles. There are places for Members to vote independently, and there are places for them to be sensitive to the larger party good. For example, the failure of unity on the lobbying reform debate earlier in the year enabled the Republicans to get away with passing a terrible, weak bill and diluting the accountability they deserve for their failure on ethics and lobbying reform. Among the defectors on the key vote was one John Murtha.

It is easy to imagine the Democrats winning the House, and it’s plausible to imagine Democrats winning the Senate. But it is not easy to imagine them winning substantial majorities in either chamber. The ideological polarization in Congress will be even sharper, since the Republicans on the chopping block this fall are disproportionately from the party’s moderate wing. Making a majority work will be as difficult as it has ever been. I don’t envy the leaders.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.