Bush cut funding for education, and Jeffords wanted to help improve the state of U.S. education. As chair of the Senate's Education Committee and as a Vermont Senator where small dairy farms are important, Jeffords did not support Bush's big money conservative agenda and voted against the President's trillion-plus tax cut giveaway. In addition, the White House and GOP in DC, launched a campaign against James Jeffords in the Vermont media. Apparently, reporters and editors of the local papers were phoned and lobbied to help chastise Jeffords and bring him back into Bush's camp. But the last straw was most likely the White House's stand against the Northeast Dairy Compact, an arrangement that helps to support many family dairy farms in Vermont.
Home team wins.
The Bush-Cheney GOP abandoned Vermont and tried to humiliate James Jeffords at home. The Jeffords' announcement to leave the Republican Party simply signals that the right-wing Bush GOP no longer represents the best interests of Vermont, and Jeffords can best serve Vermont as an Independent, aligned with the Senate Democrats. The move gives the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate, gives Jeffords' chairmanship of the Senate Environmental Committee, strips the state's GOP of its only high profile elected official, and slows down Bush's conservative bulldozer. Jeffords' official announcement was made at a Vermont press conference on 24 May 2001 held at the Radisson Hotel overlooking Lake Champlain in Burlington and was attended by many of the state's GOP top officials, as well as many top-ranking Vermont Democrats. Matthew Lyon who stood against the Sedition Act.