U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), a one-time Democrat who switched to being a Republican when the Democratic Party wouldn’t back his run for Philadelphia district attorney, appears set to announce a switch back to the Democratic Party. I remember watching Specter’s wife, Joan, at work on the Philadelphia City Council, where she was one of the only Republicans, when I worked in Philadelphia. I supported the campaign of then Pennsylvania Democratic U.S. House member Bob Edgar against Specter in 1986. That year, like most years, Specter faced a powerful conservative Republican challenger in the Republican Party, then had to pivot to face a strong Democratic challenger (in that year, Edgar).
Specter (pictured above in 2004 with now Vice President Biden – then dubbed “the third senator from Pennsylvania” given his pro-PA voting record and residence in Wilmington, Delaware just miles from the Delaware-PA line) was one of three Republicans in the Senate who voted for President Obama’s stimulus package. A 79-year-old cancer survivor, Specter pushed for a got a big increase in the National Institutes of Health’s budget in the stimulus package as one of the prices for his vote.
Already, it was clear that Senator Specter would once again would face a very strong conservative challenger in the 2010 Republican primary. With the switch, Specter will face that challenger in the general election and will not have to turn around and face a Democratic challenger in the general election. President Obama ended up winning Pennsylvania easily, and Specter’s PA colleague in the Senate (Bob Casey Jr.) is a Democrat and the state’s governor (Specter’s successor as Philadelphia district attorney and former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell) is a Democrat.
Once the Minnesota Supreme Court and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty award the Minnesota U.S. Senate seat that was up for grabs in 2008 to comedian Al Franken, who has apparently unseated Democrat-turned Republican and former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, the Democrats will now have the 60-seat filibuster-proof majority that eluded them when Georgia incumbent U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss won that December special runoff election.
Keep in mind that at least two Democratic U.S. senators have been ailing and are not always available for votes.We’ll see what all of this means for bipartisanship. It may that Democrats don’t have to threaten to use the budget reconciliation process to ram President Obama’s health care plan through. On the other hand, this will increase the power in the Senate not of the dwindling number of Republican moderates (of which Coleman and Specter were two) but of Democratic moderates (including Nebraskan Ben Nelson and – now – perhaps Specter) who have balked at plenty of Obama’s ambitious proposals.
P.S. Senator Specter has long served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was one of the thorns in Anita Hill’s side (though he was respectful) when she testified against the confirmation of her former supervisor, now U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He chaired the committee when the Republicans were in the Senate majority earlier this decade, but only got that position – even though seniority would have normally given it to him anyway – when he promised conservatives that he wouldn’t interfere with any of then President Bush’s nominations of conservative Republicans as federal court judges.
P.P.S. Another factor in Specter’s decision: The rambunctious PA Democratic Party presidential election between then Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - especially in PA, a state in which primary elections are open only to those registered with the particular party – and then the increasingly popular candidacy of Democratic presidential nominee Obama – shifted thousands and thousands of PA voters not only out of the ranks of independent voters and those not registered to vote – but also out of the Republican Party rolls. Now Democrats, these pro-Obama former Republicans would not be available to help Specter defend his seat in a Republican primary.
-- Perry
3 comments:
A Facebook friend of mine does not agree that Senator Specter was courteous to Anita Hill. My friend's initial post: "I still believe Anita Hill." Commenting on Specter's role in particular: "I remember what a sexist jackass he was."
Another question is whether Senator Specter exacted a committee chairpersonship from Democratic leaders. It's hard for me to imagine that the Democrats would toss Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy from his position as Judiciary Committee chairperson to give Spector back his chairpersonship.
A Facebook friend of a Facebook friend (one of my former competitors at the "Tallahassee Democrat") reminded us of Senator Specter's background going back even further. Specter was a lead lawyer for the Warren Commission, which investigated President Kennedy's assassination. Conceptually - though I don't remember if a Specter character was in the movie - Specter was the villain of the Oliver Stone movie "JFK," because he was the lead person with the single bullet theory, that a lone gunman (presumably Oswald) - in no conspiracy - shot Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally with one bullet.
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