Posted on 11/04/2004 12:51:30 PM PST by The G Man
Washington, D.C.- Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) made the following comments today on the judicial confirmation process.
"Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges.
"As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush’s nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas.
"I have already sponsored a protocol calling for a Judiciary Committee hearing within thirty days of a nomination, a vote out of Committee thirty days later, and floor action thirty days after that. I am committed to such prompt action by the Committee on all of President Bush’s nominees.
"In light of the repeated filibusters by the Democrats in the last Senate session, I am concerned about a potential repetition of such filibusters. I expect to work well with President Bush in the judicial confirmation process in the years ahead."
O'Connor and Kennedy are pro-abortion
yes, but you know how evil the press is. why wouldn't they twist his words to make them both look bad?
"I expect to work well with President Bush in the judicial confirmation process in the years ahead."
Too late. Keep him out as chairman.
Still, it seems as though someone is getting the message.
I agree this guy speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Just like John Kerry. I still do not trust him heading the judiciary committee.
Arlen Specter is nothing but a liberal in Republican clothing..
Atomicpossum: MSM advocate.
here's the transcript that generated the ap article...
> November 3, 2004
> Transcript
>
>
> JORDAN: Senator, you didn't talk about the Judiciary
> Committee, it is something you are expected to Chair this January.
> With 3 Supreme Court Justices rumored to retire soon, starting with
> Rehnquist, how do you see this unfolding in the next couple of months
> and what part do you intend to play on it?
>
> SPECTER: You know my approach is cautious with respect to
> the Judiciary Committee. I am in line, Senator Hatch is barred now by
> term limits and Senate Rules so that I am next in line. There has to
> be a vote of the Committee and I have already started to talk to some
> of my fellow committee members. I am respectful of Senate traditions,
> so I am not designating myself Chairman, I will wait for the Senate
> procedures to act in do course. You are right on the substance, the
> Chief Justice is gravely ill. I had known more about that than had
> appeared in the media. When he said he was going to be back on
> Monday, it was known inside that he was not going to be back on
> Monday. The full extent of his full incapacitation is really not
> known, I believe there will be cause for deliberation by the
> President. The Constitution has a clause called advise and consent,
> the advise part is traditionally not paid a whole lot of attention to,
> I wouldn't quite say ignored, but close to that. My hope that the
> Senate will be more involved in expressing our views. We start off
> with the basic fact that the Democrats are have filibustered and
> expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad
> range of acceptability. I think there is a very broad range of
> Presidential Discretion but there is a range.
>
> ODOM: Is Mr. Bush, he just won the election, even with
> the popular vote as well. If he wants anti-abortion judges up there,
> you are caught in the middle of it what are you going to do? The
> party is going one way and you are saying this.
>
> SPECTER: When you talk about judges who would change the
> right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v Wade, I think that is
> unlikely. And I have said that bluntly during the course of the
> campaign and before. When the Inquirer endorsed me, they quoted my
> statement that Roe v Wade was inviolate. And that 1973 decision,
> which has been in effect now for 33 years, was buttressed by the 1992
> decision, written by three Republican justices-O'Conner, Souter, and
> Kennedy-and nobody can doubt Anthony Kennedy's conservativism or
> pro-life position, but that's the fabric of the country. Nobody can be
> confirmed today who didn't agree with Brown v. Board of Education on
> integration, and I believe that while you traditionally do not ask a
> nominee how they're going to decide a specific case, there's a
> doctorate and a fancy label term, stari decisis, precedent which I
> think protects that issue. That is my view, now, before, and always.
>
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> to send somebody up there like that.
>
> SPECTER: Can't hear you
>
> ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother
> or make the move to send somebody up there who is clearly
> anti-abortion.
>
> SPECTER: I don't want to prejudge what the President is
> going to do. But the President is well aware of what happened when a
> number of his nominees were sent up, were filibustered, and the
> President has said he is not going to impose a litmus test, he faced
> that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the
> President, I would expect the President to be mindful of the
> considerations that I mentioned.
>
> JORDAN: However, Senator the President has President has sent
> up, as you know, a number of very very conservative judges socially,
> you have made a point in this campaign of saying that you have
> supported all of those ______ at least I the last two years, how is
> this going to square with what you are saying today about wanting the
> Republican party to be big tent and moderate.
>
> SPECTER: I have been very careful in what I have said and
> what I have done. The nominees whom I supported in Committee, I had
> reservations on. As for judge Pryor, there had been an issue as to
> whether as Attorney General he had raised money, I said in voting him
> out of committee, that he did not have my vote on the floor until I
> satisfied myself about collateral matters. The woman judge out of
> California, who had dismissed a case on invasion of privacy where the
> doctor had permitted an insurance adjuster to watch a mammogram, I had
> a reservation on it, so I wanted to talk to her to see if that was
> aberrational or whether that really reflected her judgment on each and
> every one of those cases. This may be more detail than you want, but
> there was one judge for a district judgeship, Judge Holmes, in
> Arkansas, who was first in his class at the University of Arkansas,
> had a PhD from Duke, had a master's degree, was touted by both
> Democratic Arkansas Senators, was supported by 2 pro-choice women,
> Senator Landrieu and Senator Lincoln, highly regarded in the Arkansas
> editorial pages, and for a district court judgeship I thought. He had
> made two statements, and they were, one was in a religious context
> that a wife should be subservient to a husband, that was in a
> religious context. Then he made a statement doubting the potential
> for impregnation from rape, and made an absurd statement that it would
> be as rare as snow in Florida in July. That was about a 20 year-old
> statement and I brought him in and sat down, had a long talk with him
> and concluded that they were not disqualifiers. He was the only judge
> whom I voted to confirm on the floor vote where any question has been
> raised and I think that was the right decision for a district court
> judgeship, not to make that a disqualifier. There are few if any
> whose record if you go back over 30 or 40 years, and not find some
> dumb thing, I don't want you to take a to close a look at my 40 year
> record.
>
> HIGHSMITH: Talk to us a little bit beyond judgeships, you
> said again today and last night that your goal now is to moderate the
> party, bring it to the center.
>
> SPECTER: Correct
>
> [BREAK-Bringing the Country Together Question]
>
> [BREAK-Stem Cell Question]
>
> MACINTOSH: What are the characteristics that you are
> looking for in any candidate for the high court who might come your
> way in the next year or two?
>
> SPECTER: Well I would like to see a select someone in the
> mold of Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo, or Marshall. With all due respect
> to the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one. And I haven't minced
> any words about that during the confirmation process.
>
> MACINTOSH: Meaning?
>
> SPECTER: Where I have questioned them all very closely.
> I had an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on
> trying to keep the Navy base, and you should heard what the eight of
> them had to say to me. They were almost as tough as this gang here
> this morning.
>
> ODOM: Senator, the judges you mentioned are obviously
> renown. Are you saying that there are no greatness on there, is that
> what you're driving at?
>
> SPECTER: Yes. Can you take yes for an answer Vernon?
> I'm saying that we don't have anybody of the stature of Oliver Wendell
> Holmes, or Willy Brandeis, or Cardozo, or Marshall. That's what I'm
> saying. I'm saying that we have a court which they're graduates from
> the Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia basically, some
> other Circuit Courts of Appeals. I think that we could use, and I am
> repeating myself again, a Holmes or a Brandeis.
>
> ODOM: Would you resign to take the appointment?
> You're the only person I can think of?
>
> SPECTER: I can think of quite a few other people.
>
> JORDAN: Like who?
>
> SPECTER: I think there's some possibility, just a slight
> possibility, I may not be offered the appointment.
>
> JORDAN: Senator, who do you think would be a good candidate?
>
> SPECTER: For the Supreme Court?
>
> JORDAN: Yes.
>
> SPECTER: I have some ideas but I'm going to withhold my
> comments. If, as, and when the President asks that question, Lara,
> I'll have some specific information for him. In the alternative, if
> you become President, I'll have it for you.
>
> [BREAK-Election 2010 question]
>
> [BREAK-Iraq questions]
>
> Jordan: Do you expect to continue supporting all of
> President Bush's judicial nominees?
>
> AS: I am hopeful that I'll be able to do that. That
> obviously depends upon the President's judicial nominees. I'm hopeful
> that I can support them.
>
> [BREAK-Election question]
>
> [End Press Conference]
LOL...this is EXACTLY what Trent Lott had to do after he shot his mouth off after the GOP takeover (about not being in a rush to do anything before the New year).
Guess it's endemic in DC...but one "WTF?" call from the evil genius, Rove, clears it right up.
........Fire in the Kilt..............
It was an AP misquote.
Rush talked about how the media was just trying to plant this.They (MSM)are trying to lie again.
At least now we have him on record for the 90-day press. Not much weasle room here. The MSM have let this sort of thing slide for years; I doubt Bloggers will.
If he gets the Judiciary Chair, it's because the President wants him there. Pure and simple.
And if the President wants him there, it's because the President knows that Spector will back his nominees. That will be good enough for me.
Believe me, I wish we had 65 Senators and they were all like Saxby Chambliss, but we've got to work with what we have.
Atomicpossum: MSM advocate. No, but in his statement he never says what exactly the problem was: Misquote? Outright lie? Selective edit? Misattribution? Specter's statement just says 'contrary to Press accounts.' He doesn't set the record straight on exactly what he did say, and how it was mischaracterized.
I am with you...I dont buy it for a NY second.
As Jim Reeves once said, "he'll have to go!"
Sure sounds like an abortion litmus test to me!
SPECTER: Where I have questioned them all very closely. > I had an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on > trying to keep the Navy base, and you should heard what the eight of > them had to say to me. They were almost as tough as this gang here > this morning.
> > ODOM: Senator, the judges you mentioned are obviously > renown. Are you saying that there are no greatness on there, is that > what you're driving at?
> > SPECTER: Yes. Can you take yes for an answer Vernon?
> I'm saying that we don't have anybody of the stature of Oliver Wendell > Holmes, or Willy Brandeis, or Cardozo, or Marshall. That's what I'm > saying. I'm saying that we have a court which they're graduates from > the Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia basically, some > other Circuit Courts of Appeals. I think that we could use, and I am > repeating myself again, a Holmes or a Brandeis.
> > ODOM: Would you resign to take the
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.