November 10, 2004
Tide runs against Specter
Uproar continues over comments on federal judges
By Alexander Bolton - The Hill
Conservative opposition to Sen. Arlen Specter’s (R-Pa.) becoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee has mushroomed, to the dismay of Senate leaders who hoped it would fade, The Hill has learned.
Many conservatives were outraged by Specter’s comments after being reelected to a fifth term last week, when he said it is unlikely that the Senate would confirm judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Specter’s post-election statement that judicial nominees who oppose abortion rights may have a hard time getting confirmed has put Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Specter’s junior colleague, Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), in difficult positions.
Both men are viewed to have White House ambitions. Frist is expected to retire from the Senate at the end of the next Congress to run for president, while Santorum’s supporters expect him also to run for the White House, perhaps as early as 2008.
The support of social conservatives is crucial to the presidential ambitions of both men, as conservatives — particularly evangelical Christians — demonstrated last week by helping President Bush defeat Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry by a comfortable margin.
Some GOP strategists speculated last week that the controversy over Specter’s remarks, which he hastily backed off of, might die down over the weekend. But conservative leaders such as James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, criticized Specter, as did House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
Frist, Santorum and other Republicans reported that their telephones, fax machines and e-mail inboxes were jammed by protests from conservative activists who demanded that Specter not be allowed to succeed term-limited Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
“This is huge with the base. It’s mushrooming, and it’s not going away,” a GOP Senate aide said.
Specter has claimed his comments were reported out of context and issued a statement pledging to advance Bush’s judicial nominees, who are likely to include one or more selections to the Supreme Court.
The response from Senate Republican leaders has been not to respond, either in the hope that the uproar will die down or out of fear that opposing Specter’s ascension could backfire.
GOP aides and conservative leaders outside Congress said that Senate Republicans have not “circled their wagons” to defend Specter.
Frist has been silent, and Santorum issued a bland statement of support on Specter’s behalf last week but has since kept his distance.
“The Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have the responsibility of voting for chairman,” Santorum said in a statement released by his office. “As I’m not a member of this committee, I will not be participating in the voting process.”
As chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, Santorum can claim he has an obligation to represent the interests of all 51 GOP senators and, therefore, it would be improper for him to pick sides in an internecine battle.
However, many conservatives, still angry over the role Santorum played in helping Specter stave off a stiff primary challenge from conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, are placing the focus squarely on Santorum.
Mike Schwartz, vice president of government relations for Concerned Women for America, one of the groups leading the conservative charge against Specter, said that the controversy can only be resolved by Santorum and that his standing with the Republican base could be damaged.
“Rick Santorum has already severely strained his relationship with conservatives by going way beyond the call of duty to get Specter renominated,” Schwartz said. “He’s the one person who can bring this to an end in a peaceful way.”
Schwartz, who said he believes Specter would relinquish his claim to head the judiciary panel if Santorum asked him to, added that if Santorum does not intervene he will “more seriously fray his relationship with conservatives.”
As for what impact that may have Santorum’s presumed White House ambitions, Schwartz said, “Let me remind you of how well Senator Specter did when he ran for president” in 1996, when he failed to mount a serious bid.
One GOP aide estimated that nearly 20 conservative groups are involved in the campaign to deny Specter the Judiciary Committee chairmanship.
In defending himself, Specter has been mostly alone, making several media appearances to tamp down the conservative uproar.
“I have not heard of any Republican senators coming to his defense yet, which is good news for us,” said Jayd Henricks, director of congressional relations for the Family Research Council, another conservative group hoping to oust Specter. “This is not a good thing for keeping party unity. They may be waiting to see if the storm dies down, but I don’t think the pressure’s going to let up, from our standpoint.”
Time and Senate procedure may work to Specter’s advantage.
The process for choosing a successor to Hatch, who will step down because of Republican Conference-imposed term limits, requires that members of the judiciary panel vote on a new chairman. That recommendation must then be ratified by the full conference.
But the committee is not expected to vote on Specter until January, when seven new GOP members have been sworn in and given committee assignments. Conservative activists may be hard-pressed to sustain their push against Specter for two more months.
On the other hand, a new class of conservatives will join the Senate, including former Reps. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Rep. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who could press the leadership on behalf of their constituencies. Another incoming freshman, former Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.), said over the weekend that the makeup of the federal judiciary was a main theme of his campaign.
In addition, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee may be emboldened by anonymity to vote against Specter’s chairmanship, as the January vote will take place through secret ballot.
“I think there will be votes against him with a secret ballot,” said an aide to a Republican member of the committee. “The key is whether any Judiciary members lobby senators to vote against him prior to the conference vote.”
The aide added, “Specter not the right person for the position. Specter has shown he’s not a team player.”
Specter may be hurt by his positions on tort reform, a central element of Bush’s second-term agenda.
In the past election cycle, he accepted more than three times as much money in political contributions from lawyers and law firms than from any other industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And Specter’s son is a prominent Philadelphia-based trial lawyer.
That has raised the suspicions of several tort-reform proponents, who said momentum on the issue could be hampered if Specter presided over the committee of primary jurisdiction.
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