Bait and Switch: Specter's Record and His Word     11/11/2004
By Jan LaRue, Chief Counsel

Specter says he's the victim of "incorrect reporting."

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) has been busier than a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs trying to distance himself from his statement last week, which has been widely interpreted as a warning to the president not to send any pro-life judges to the Judiciary Committee when he’s chairman. Specter says he’s the victim of “incorrect reporting.”

Specter says, “Check my 24-year record in the Senate.” That’s the problem.

Specter’s vigorous support of abortion, racial preferences, embryonic stem-cell research, therapeutic cloning and the International Criminal Court, and against a federal marriage amendment, school choice, tax reform and tort reform sets him against the president. Having Specter chair the Judiciary Committee makes as much sense as having Ted Kennedy lead Navy Seals in underwater rescue.

He says, “I’ve supported all of the president’s judicial nominees in committee and on the floor.” When Specter voted William Pryor, nominee to the 11th Circuit, out of committee, he said he might vote with the Democrats against him on the Senate floor. He referred to Janice Rogers Brown, nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, as “that woman judge from California,” the one he had reservations about.

Pantyhose give more support than this.

Specter says he is “committed in word and deed to prompt action by the Judiciary Committee.” We should be able to expect that much from a Democrat. Specter hasn’t promised to support the president’s nominees.

Specter repeatedly refers to his support of William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia even though they are “pro-life.” In his book, Passion for Truth, it’s clear that his support of them was tepid.

He points to his “rescue” of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. MSNBC quoted Specter as saying that Thomas has proved to be “very disappointing” to him (October 23, 2003).

Specter calls Judge Robert Bork extreme. He says in his book, “A Court dominated by Bork’s intellect with three similarly disposed new appointees plus Rehnquist and Scalia could adopt original intent and weaken or even reject judicial review. I concluded that the country couldn’t take the risk.”

He opposed President Reagan’s nomination of Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), now a senator and member of the Judiciary Committee, from being named a federal judge because he “was extreme on civil rights.”

In a 1995 fund-raising letter in his campaign for president, Specter wrote:

I want to strip the strident anti-choice language from the 1996 Republican National Platform and will lead the fight to do so at the next National Convention. I am the only Republican candidate for president who will stress the pro-choice position. …I want to give pro-choice Republicans a voice. I will not give up our party to radical extremists without a fight. … As a pro-choice Republican, will you help me? Will you stand up to the far-right fringe that demands that legal abortion be banned? [Emphasis in original.]

According to the Pittsburgh Post–Gazette editorial of October 24, 2004, which endorsed Specter for re-election, “[Specter] promised the editorial board that no extremists would be approved for the bench.”

However, on November 5, The Washington Post quoted Specter as saying he “would never apply any litmus test" on abortion. … "I expect to support [President Bush’s] nominees.”

On November 8, he told Judy Woodruff of CNN’s Inside Politics, who asked about “new appointments [that] may reverse Roe v. Wade,” “Look here. I think I can help the president.”

If Specter really intended to help the president, his statement on the day after the election would have been a strong one needing no “clarification” that could lead to “incorrect reporting.” It would have sent a shot across the bow of Senate Democrats instead of the president.

Instead of saying the president doesn’t have a mandate as a result of the election, he would have emphasized that he does. Instead of anticipating continued filibustering of qualified nominees, he should have cautioned his Democratic colleagues, “Don’t even think about filibustering or you might end up at home on the range like Tom Daschle.”

The question becomes, which Specter “word” are we to rely on? To rely on his alleged commitment to support the president’s judicial nominees while attempting to extinguish a firestorm of protest requires placing confidence in a man who’s willing to repudiate his core beliefs and 24-year-record.

What kind of a person does that in order to chair a committee? And how does that qualify him as a strong, reliable leader?

It doesn’t. He should do the honorable thing and withdraw himself from consideration.

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