Maybe newly elected Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) is communicating with the ghost of Ted Kennedy.

Brown, in one of his first major votes, broke with his Republican colleagues and voted in favor of allowing a jobs bill to reach the Senate floor. With his election, Brown became the 41st vote Republicans needed to filibuster Democratic-backed bills. Instead, Brown slipped in and out of the Senate chambers and voted in favor of the bill before his contemporaries became aware of his vote.

"It's a small step, but it's still a step," Brown said after the vote. "I came to Washington to be an independent voice, to put politics aside and to do everything in my power to help create jobs for Massachusetts families," Brown said in a statement.

The goal of the bill is to increase hiring, especially by small businesses and save 1 million jobs. Companies that hire unemployed workers will get a one-year reprieve from Social Security taxes, while small businesses will get a $250,000 tax break on new equipment purchases.

"This Senate jobs bill is not perfect," he added. "I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work."

And one of the best parts of Brown's actions is that it may have empowered fellow moderate Republicans to follow his lead. Four other senators -- Christopher Bond of Missouri, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe -- decided to vote in favor of the bill."We had to move forward," said Snowe. "We're getting beyond procedural hurdles, and hopefully we will set a different course," she added.

This is the right course for Republicans to take. Instead of pursuing a strategy of resisting everything that the Democratically controlled Congress produces just for the sake of politics, they should find areas where they can compromise for the benefit of all Americans. Issues such as health care reform and banking regulation should not be defeated simply because of politics.

Republican members of Congress were elected to represent the interests of the American people, not to try and win seats. Although they are no longer the majority, it is the duty of each party to move this country forward.

Republicans also lacked the political cover to vote against this bill when so many Americans are out of work. Republicans have been able to muddy an issue like health care reform but it's hard to muddy the fact that entire families are struggling to find work while unemployment benefits dwindle.

"The American people want to see Washington put aside partisan differences and make progress on jobs, and today the Senate took one important step forward in doing that," President Barack Obama said in a statement.