OPINION:
Doug Jones, the new and accidental senator from Alabama, has a big decision to make as he prepares to serve out the remainder of the Senate term of Jeff Sessions, who resigned his seat to become U.S. attorney general in the Trump administration. He has to decide whether to represent Alabama or Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate. It’s not likely he can do both.
Mr. Jones defeated Roy Moore, the Republican nominee that most Republicans in Alabama only wanted to go away. The Republican candidate’s campaign imploded, and even then he won by a scant 1.5 percentage points, 49.9 percent to 48.4 percent. A Democrat in Alabama couldn’t win an outright majority even against an inarticulate, untelegenic candidate who carried more baggage than you might find in the belly of a Boeing 747. Nevertheless, Mr. Jones will be a senator from Alabama until 2020, and he’s not likely, short of a Damascus Road conversion, to serve beyond that.
Mr. Jones surely knows that Alabama is not another New York. If he aspires to be re-elected and serve beyond January 2021, rather than just keeping a seat warm he will have to occasionally buck the Democratic Party line, which is far out of step with “Alabama values,” or toe the line that Mr. Schumer has drawn, and has demonstrated that he will enforce it.
Early indications aren’t encouraging for Alabama. Mr. Schumer wants the Republican majority in the Senate to postpone a vote on its tax-cut bill, scheduled for this week, until after Mr. Jones is sworn in as senator. That strongly suggests that Mr. Jones is already a firm “no” vote on the tax measure, though he can’t have mastered it since the details of the legislation are still being negotiated by House and Senate conferees. Mr. Schumer wouldn’t be so solicitous of seating Mr. Jones immediately if he were likely to vote “yes” on the tax cut.
The Washington Post observes that Mr. Jones sounds “more like a standard Democrat than an Alabama centrist.” He wants no further restrictions on abortion, and he’s open to more restrictions on the Second Amendment right to own a gun. He hints, strongly, that he opposes the tax cut and says he wants to change Alabama’s laws that now protect the ballot from fraud. He prefers to “make it easier to vote.”
Mr. Jones has outlined his support for “investing” in Medicaid and education, and for requiring employers to pay a “living wage.” He was opposed to repealing Obamacare and wants to keep the United States in the Paris Climate Accord. All that is a perfect copy of Chuck Schumer’s voting record.
“[Doug Jones] got elected as an Alabama Democrat, not as a Washington Democrat,” says Sen. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat of West Virginia, who occasionally strays from Democratic Party orthodoxy. “There is a difference.” Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama’s other senator who was once a Democrat, on the Sunday before the election urged his constituents not to vote for Roy Moore, which was probably what tipped the race to Doug Jones.
With buyer’s remorse about to ruin his Christmas, Sen. Shelby, like his constituents, must suffer the consequences. He put Doug Jones in a position to cancel his own vote on issues he says are dear to his heart. “I’m hoping he’ll be a common-sense Democrat,” Mr. Shelby says. Hope springs eternal, of course, but that’s not the way to bet.
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