For the Record.(News Briefs)(Brief Article)

Party-switching Sen. Jim Jeffords, in Newsweek: "I don't blame the president as much as I do the Senate leadership." . . . Republican Senate leader Trent Lott says there is "something liberating about being in the minority" because Republicans will be "freer to advocate positions and amendments [they] really think should be adopted." . . . Rep. Chris Shays (R., Conn.), in Salon.com: "If I were in the Senate, I would want new leadership." . . . NPR's Nina Totenberg looks at GOP and sees wife beaters: "The modern Republican party and its moderate wing are in a sort of, to use the psychobabble of the era, in an abusive relationship. . . . The conservatives are the abusers."

President Bush declines to issue statement marking June as Gay Pride Month, as Bill Clinton did during his tenure. . . . Bush at Yale commencement: "Everything I know about the spoken word, I learned right here at Yale." . . . In McLaughlin & Associates poll, 68 percent of blacks and 59 percent of whites say it is "unfair" for Congress to impose 40 percent death tax on estates worth $1 billion. . . . Democratic consultants Paul Begala and James Carville offer advice in New York Times: "The Democrats must work to spend and shrink: spend the money and shrink the tax cut." . . . No House Republicans oppose final tax-cut bill, but two Senate GOPers say nay: Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and John McCain (Ariz.). . . . Chafee, on whether he will "absolutely" remain a Republican, in Associated Press: "I can't say 'absolutely' on anything." . . . McCain, on what GOP colleagues talk about, in USA Today: "You think they talk to me?"

California governor Gray Davis (D.) hires Al Gore's top two campaign spokesmen, Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, for $180,000 in taxpayer dollars. When state Republicans object, Democrat Bob Mulholland defends move by telling Washington Times that former GOP governor Pete Wilson "spent similar sums on ruthless campaign operatives of his own." . . . Yvette Lozano, former employee of media company hired by Bush campaign, admits to sending debate-preparation tape to Gore adviser and pleads guilty to mail fraud and perjury. . . . In speech, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia says high court's reputation is not "some shiny piece of trophy armor." Instead, "it's working armor and meant to be used and sometimes dented in the service of the public." . . . Sen. Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), on Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, in 1974: "The culmination of the Watergate cover-up." . . . Kennedy, this year, following Ford's receipt of the Profile in Courage Award, given in honor of JFK: "It took great courage to make that pardon."

Bush picks Indiana University art historian Bruce Cole to head National Endowment for the Humanities. . . . ...