The Connecticut Post November 15, 2006
Options open, Lieberman won't veto switch
By Peter Urban
WASHINGTON — Though he won re-election as an independent, Sen. Joe Lieberman returned to the Democratic fold Tuesday, helping give the party a 51-49 Senate majority when the 110th Congress convenes in January. But he remained murky on his future.
Lieberman took part in a closed-door caucus with his Democratic colleagues, emerging, as expected, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. He is the committee's ranking member.
Lieberman also will serve as chairman of an environmental subcommittee. Lieberman pledged during his campaign to caucus with Democrats largely to preserve his seniority in the Senate. Although he intends to remain a Democrat, Lieberman said it is not an open-ended commitment.
"I do feel I am beholden to no political group. I'm responsible to the people of Connecticut and my own conscience," he said.
Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson said Lieberman's return as a self-described "independent Democrat" made no waves within the caucus.
"Nothing has changed," Nelson said. "It was just normal, natural, like the old days. We're so used to him being there."
Other senators left the meeting echoing the same sentiments, including Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who campaigned against Lieberman.
"We're all pros and we're all adults," Kerry said. "The people of Connecticut have spoken. We respect it and are glad we have his support."
Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., also welcomed Lieberman back.
"He's a colleague and a friend," said Dodd, who campaigned for Lieberman's opponent. "Life goes on and we've got the people's business to attend to."
Although he remains a registered Democrat, Lieberman ran for Senate as a petitioning candidate under the banner of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party after losing an August Democratic primary to anti-Iraq war candidate Ned Lamont.
Lieberman defeated Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, in the general election with substantial support from Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Most Democrats backed Lamont in the election. The Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, ran without the financial support or backing of most state and national Republicans. A day after the election, Lieberman said that his party affiliation was a "closed issue," but seemed to change his stance by the weekend when he told NBC's "Meet the Press" he was not ruling out the possibility of becoming a Republican.
Lieberman said Tuesday he would keep his pledge to caucus with Democrats and hoped to "remain with the caucus." Lieberman said Democrats greeted him warmly when they gathered in the old Senate chamber to elect their leaders. He chatted briefly with two newly elected colleagues — Sherrod Brown, of Ohio and Amy Klobuchar, of Minnesota — who were students of his at Yale University, where he taught a seminar course in the 1980s. After the caucus broke up, Lieberman lingered inside with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to discuss how the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would handle climate change.
Boxer, who will chair the committee, wants to focus on global warming as a key issue for the full committee. Political analyst John Pike, head of Virginia-based research firm GlobalSecurity.org, said the homeland security committee has an important role as a bully pulpit.
"It pretty much has a hunting license to find fact on just about anything the dangburn government does," he said. The committee focused much of its recent energy on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina and recommended a revamping of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Pike, however, noted the committee has a limited role over the Department of Homeland Security's finances.
© Copyright 2006, MediaNews Group Newspapers
